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DISCOURSES  IN  AMERICA 


DISCOURSES  IN 
AMERICA 


BY 

MATTHEW  ARNOLD 

T3  R *4~ 

3)5- 


OOSTON  COLLEGE  LILRARy 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS, 
jjlcto  fgorfc 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


PREFACE 


Of  the  three  discourses  in  this 
volume,  the  second  was  originally- 
given  as  the  Rede  Lecture  at  Cam- 
bridge, was  recast  for  delivery  in 
America,  and  is  reprinted  here  as  so 
recast.  The  first  discourse,  that  on 
‘ Numbers,’  was  originally  given  in 
New  York.  It  was  afterwards  pub- 
lished in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and 
I have  to  thank  Mr.  Knowles  for 
kindly  permitting  me  to  reprint  it 
now.  The  third  discourse,  that  on 


vi  PREFACE 

‘ Emerson,’  was  originally  given  in 
Emerson’s  ‘own  delightful  town,’ 
Boston. 

I am  glad  of  every  opportunity  of 
thanking  my  American  audiences  for 
the  unfailing  attention  and  kindness 
with  which  they  listened  to  a speaker 
who  did  not  flatter  them,  who  would 
have  flattered  them  ill,  but  who  yet  felt, 
and  in  fact  expressed,  more  esteem 
and  admiration  than  his  words  were 
sometimes,  at  a hasty  first  hearing, 
supposed  to  convey.  I cannot  think 
that  what  I have  said  of  Emerson 
will  finally  be  accounted  scant  praise, 
although  praise  universal  and  unmixed 
it  certainly  is  not.  What  high  esteem 
I feel  for  the  suitableness  and  easy 
play  of  American  institutions  I have 


PREFACE 


vii 

had  occasion,  since  my  return  home, 
to  say  publicly  and  emphatically. 
But  nothing  in  the  discourse  on 
‘Numbers’  was  at  variance  with  this 
high  esteem,  although  a caution, 
certainly,  was  suggested.  But  then 
some  caution  or  other,  to  be  drawn 
from  the  inexhaustibly  fruitful  truth 
that  moral  causes  govern  the  standing 
and  the  falling  of  States,  who  is  there 
that  can  be  said  not  to  need  ? 

All  need  it,  we  in  this  country  need 
it,  as  indeed  in  the  discourse  on 
‘Numbers  I have  by  an  express 
instance  shown.  Yet  as  regards  us 
in  this  country  at  the  present  moment, 
I am  tempted,  I confess,  to  resort  to 
the  great  truth  in  question,  not  for  cau- 
tion so  much  as  for  consolation.  Our 


P RE FA CE 


viii 

politics  are  ‘ battles  of  the  kites  and 
the  crows,'  of  the  Barbarians  and  the 
Philistines;  each  combatant  striving  to 
affirm  himself  still,  while  all  the  vital 
needs  and  instincts  of  our  national 
growth  demand,  not  that  either  of  the 
combatants  should  be  enabled  to  affirm 
himself,  but  that  each  should  be  trans- 
formed. Our  aristocratical  class,  the 
Barbarians,  have  no  perception  of  the 
real  wants  of  the  community  at  home. 
Our  middle  classes,  the  great  Philis- 
tine power,  have  no  perception  of  our 
real  relations  to  the  world  abroad,  no 
clue,  apparently,  for  guidance,  where  - 
ever  that  attractive  and  ever-victorious 
rhetorician,  who  is  the  Minister  of  their 
choice,  may  take  them,  except  the  for- 
mula of  that  submissive  animal  which 


PREFACE 


IX 


carried  the  prophet  Balaam.  Our 
affairs  are  in  the  condition  which, 
from  such  parties  to  our  politics, 
might  be  expected.  Yet  amid  all  the 
difficulties  and  mortifications  which 
beset  us,  with  the  Barbarians  impos- 
sible, with  the  Philistines  determining 
our  present  course,  with  our  rising 
politicians  seeking  only  that  the  mind 
of  the  Populace,  when  the  Populace 
arrives  at  power,  may  be  found  in 
harmony  with  the  mind  of  Mr.  Carvell 
Williams,  which  they  flatter  them- 
selves they  have  fathomed  ; with  the 
House  of  Lords  a danger,  and  the 
House  of  Commons  a scandal,  and 
the  general  direction  of  affairs  in- 
felicitous as  we  see  it, — one  consola- 
tion remains  to  us,  and  that  no  slight 


PREFACE 


or  unworthy  one.  Infelicitous  the 
general  direction  of  our  affairs  may 
be;  but  the  individual  Englishman, 
whenever  and  wherever  called  upon  to 
do  his  duty,  does  it  almost  invariably 
with  the  old  energy,  courage,  virtue. 
And  this  is  what  we  gain  by  having 
had,  as  a people,  in  the  ground  of 
our  being,  a firm  faith  in  conduct ; by 
having  believed,  more  steadfastly  and 
fervently  than  most,  this  great  law  that 
moral  causes  govern  the  standing  and 
the  falling  of  men  and  nations.  The 
law  gradually  widens,  indeed,  so  as  to 
include  light  as  well  as  honesty  and 
energy  ; to  make  light,  also,  a moral 
cause.  Unless  we  are  transformed 
we  cannot  finally  stand,  and  without 
more  light  we  cannot  be  transformed. 


PREFACE 


xi 


But  in  the  trying  hours  through  which 
before  our  transformation  we  have 
to  pass,  it  may  well  console  us  to  rest 
our  thoughts  upon  our  life’s  law  even 
as  we  have  hitherto  known  it,  and 
upon  all  which  even  in  our  present 
imperfect  acception  of  it  it  has  done 
for  us. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Numbers;  or,  The  Majority  and  the 

Remnant  .....  i 

Literature  and  Science  . . .72 

. 138 


Emerson  . 


NUMBERS  ; 

OR 

THE  MAJORITY  AND  THE  REMNANT 

There  is  a characteristic  saying  of  Dr. 
Johnson  : ‘ Patriotism  is  the  last  refuge 
of  a scoundrel.’  The  saying  is  cynical, 
many  will  even  call  it  brutal  ; yet  it 
has  in  it  something  of  plain,  robust 
sense  and  truth.  We  do  often  see 
men  passing  themselves  off  as  patriots, 
who  are  in  truth  scoundrels  ; we  meet 
with  talk  and  proceedings  laying  claim 
to  patriotism,  which  are  these  gentle- 
men’s last  refuge.  We  may  all  of  us 


B 


NUMBERS 


agree  in  praying  to  be  delivered  from 
patriots  and  patriotism  of  this  sort. 
Short  of  such,  there  is  undoubtedly, 
sheltering  itself  under  the  fine  name 
of  patriotism,  a good  deal  of  self- 
flattery  and  self-delusion  which  is  mis- 
chievous. ‘ Things  are  what  they 
are,  and  the  consequences  of  them 
will  be  what  they  will  be  ; why,  then, 
should  we  desire  to  be  deceived  ? ’ 
In  that  uncompromising  sentence  of 
Bishop  Butler’s  is  surely  the  right  and 
salutary  maxim  for  both  individuals 
and  nations. 

Yet  there  is  an  honourable  patriot- 
ism which  we  should  satisfy  if  we  can, 
and  should  seek  to  have  on  our  side. 
At  home  I have  said  so  much  of  the 
characters  of  our  society  and  the 


NUMBERS 


3 


prospects  of  our  civilisation,  that  I 
can  hardly  escape  the  like  topic  else- 
where. Speaking  in  America,  I can- 
not well  avoid  saying  something  about 
the  prospects  of  society  in  the  United 
States.  It  is  a topic  where  one  is  apt 
to  touch  people’s  patriotic  feelings. 
No  one  will  accuse  me  of  having 
flattered  the  patriotism  of  that  great 
country  of  English  people  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic,  amongst  whom  I 
was  born.  Here,  so  many  miles  from 
home,  I begin  to  reflect  with  tender 
contrition,  that  perhaps  I have  not, — 
I will  not  say  flattered  the  patriotism 
of  my  own  countrymen  enough,  but 
regarded  it  enough.  Perhaps  that  is 
one  reason  why  I have  produced  so 
very  little  effect  upon  them.  It  was 


4 


NUMBERS 


a fault  of  youth  and  inexperience. 
But  it  would  be  unpardonable  to  come 
in  advanced  life  and  repeat  the  same 
error  here.  You  will  not  expect  im- 
possibilities of  me.  You  will  not 
expect  me  to  say  that  things  are  not 
what,  in  my  judgment,  they  are,  and 
that  the  consequences  of  them  will  not 
be  what  they  will  be.  I should  make 
nothing  of  it ; I should  be  a too 
palpable  failure.  But  I confess  that 
I should  be  glad  if  in  what  I say 
here  I could  engage  American  pa 
triotism  on  my  side,  instead  of  rous- 
ing it  against  me.  And  it  so  hap- 
pens that  the  paramount  thoughts 
which  your  great  country  raises  in 
my  mind  are  really  and  truly  of  a 
kind  to  please,  I think,  any  true 


NUMBERS 


5 


American  patriot,  rather  than  to  offend 
him. 

The  vast  scale  of  things  here,  the 
extent  of  your  country,  your  numbers, 
the  rapidity  of  your  increase,  strike 
the  imagination,  and  are  a common 
topic  for  admiring  remark.  Our  great 
orator,  Mr.  Bright,  is  never  weary  of 
telling  us  how  many  acres  of  land  you 
have  at  your  disposal,  how  many 
bushels  of  grain  you  produce,  how 
many  millions  you  are,  how  many 
more  millions  you  will  be  presently, 
and  what  a capital  thing  this  is  for 
you.  Now,  though  I do  not  always 
agree  with  Mr.  Bright,  I find  myself 
agreeing  with  him  here.  I think  your 
numbers  afford  a very  real  and  im- 
portant ground  for  satisfaction. 


6 


NUMBERS 


Not  that  your  great  numbers,  or 
indeed  great  numbers  of  men  any- 
where, are  likely  to  be  all  good,  or 
even  to  have  the  majority  good. 
‘The  majority  are  bad,’  said  one  of 
the  wise  men  of  Greece  ; but  he  was  a 
pagan.  Much  to  the  same  effect,  how- 
ever, is  the  famous  sentence  of  the 
New  Testament : ‘ Many  are  called, 
few  chosen.’  This  appears  a hard 
saying ; frequent  are  the  endeavours 
to  elude  it,  to  attenuate  its  severity. 
But  turn  it  how  you  will,  manipulate 
it  as  you  will,  the  few,  as  Cardinal 
Newman  well  says,  can  never  mean 
the  many.  Perhaps  you  will  say  that 
the  majority  is,  sometimes,  good  ; that 
its  impulses  are  good  generally,  and  its 
action  is  good  occasionally.  Yes,  but 


NUMBERS 


7 


it  lacks  principle,  it  lacks  persistence  ; 
if  to-day  its  good  impulses  prevail, 
they  succumb  to-morrow ; sometimes 
it  goes  right,  but  it  is  very  apt  to 
go  wrong.  Even  a popular  orator,  or 
a popular  journalist,  will  hardly  say 
that  the  multitude  may  be  trusted  to 
have  its  judgment  generally  just,  and 
its  action  generally  virtuous.  It  may 
be  better,  it  is  better,  that  the  body  of 
the  people,  with  all  its  faults,  should 
act  for  itself,  and  control  its  own 
affairs,  than  that  it  should  be  set 
aside  as  ignorant  and  incapable,  and 
have  its  affairs  managed  for  it  by  a 
so-called  superior  class,  possessing 
property  and  intelligence.  Property 
and  intelligence  cannot.be  trusted  to 
show  a sound  majority  themselves ; 


NUMBERS 


the  exercise  of  power  by  the  people 
tends  to  educate  the  people.  But 
still,  the  world  being  what  it  is,  we 
must  surely  expect  the  aims  and 
doings  of  the  majority  of  men  to  be 
at  present  very  faulty,  and  this  in 
a numerous  community  no  less  than 
in  a small  one.  So  much  we  must 
certainly,  I think,  concede  to  the 
sages  and  to  the  saints. 

Sages  and  saints  are  apt  to  be 
severe,  it  is  true ; apt  to  take  a 
gloomy  view  of  the  society  in  which 
they  live,  and  to  prognosticate  evil 
to  it.  But  then  it  must  be  added 
that  their  prognostications  are  very 
apt  to  turn  out  right.  Plato’s  account 
of  the  most  gifted  and  brilliant  com- 
munity of  the  ancient  world,  of  that 


NUMBERS 


9 


Athens  of  his  to  which  we  all  owe 
so  much,  is  despondent  enough. 
‘ There  is  but  a very  small  remnant,’ 
he  says,  ‘ of  honest  followers  of  wis- 
dom, and  they  who  are  of  these  few, 
and  who  have  tasted  how  sweet  and 
blessed  a possession  is  wisdom,  and 
who  can  fully  see,  moreover,  the  mad- 
ness of  the  multitude,  and  that  there 
is  no  one,  we  may  say,  whose  action 
in  public  matters  is  sound,  and  no  ally 
for  whosoever  would  help  the  just, 
what,’  asks  Plato,  ‘ are  they  to  do  ? 
They  may  be  compared,’  says  Plato, 

‘ to  a man  who  has  fallen  among  wild 
beasts  ; he  will  not  be  one  of  them, 
but  he  is  too  unaided  to  make  head 
against  them  ; and  before  he  can  do 
any  good  to  society  or  his  friends, 


IO  NUMBERS  i 

he  will  be  overwhelmed  and  perish 
uselessly.  When  he  considers  this, 
he  will  resolve  to  keep  still,  and  to 
mind  his  own  business ; as  it  were 
standing  aside  under  a wall  in  a storm 
of  dust  and  hurricane  of  driving  wind; 
and  he  will  endure  to  behold  the 
rest  filled  with  iniquity,  if  only  he 
himself  may  live  his  life  clear  of  in- 
justice and  of  impiety,  and  depart, 
when  his  time  comes,  in  mild  and 
gracious  mood,  with  fair  hope.’ 

Plato’s  picture  here  of  democratic 
Athens  is  certainly  gloomy  enough. 
We  may  be  sure  the  mass  of  his 
contemporaries  would  have  pro- 
nounced it  to  be  monstrously  over- 
charged. We  ourselves,  if  we  had 
been  living  then,  should  most  of  us 


NUMBERS 


ii 


have  by  no  means  seen  things  as 
Plato  saw  them.  No,  if  we  had  seen 
Athens  even  nearer  its  end  than 
when  Plato  wrote  the  strong  words 
which  I have  been  quoting,  Athens 
in  the  very  last  days  of  Plato’s  life, 
we  should  most  of  us  probably  have 
considered  that  things  were  not  going 
badly  with  Athens.  There  is  a long 
sixteen  years’  administration, — the 
administration  of  Eubulus, — which 
fills  the  last  years  of  Plato’s  life,  and 
the  middle  years  of  the  fourth  century 
before  Christ.  A temperate  German 
historian  thus  describes  Athens  during 
this  ministry  of  Eubulus  : ‘ The  grand- 
eur and  loftiness  of  Attic  democracy 
had  vanished,  while  all  the  pernicious 
germs  contained  in  it  were  fully  de- 


12 


NUMBERS 


veloped.  A life  of  comfort  and  a 
craving  for  amusement  were  en- 
couraged in  every  way,  and  the  in- 
terest of  the  citizens  was  withdrawn 
from  serious  things.  Conversation 
became  more  and  more  superficial 
and  frivolous.  Famous  courtesans 
formed  the  chief  topic  of  talk ; the 
new  inventions  of  Thearion,  the 
leading  pastry-cook  in  Athens,  were 
hailed  with  loud  applause ; and  the 
witty  sayings  which  had  been  uttered 
in  gay  circles  were  repeated  about 
town  as  matters  of  prime  importance.’ 
No  doubt,  if  we  had  been  living 
then  to  witness  this,  we  should  from 
time  to  time  have  shaken  our  heads 
gravely,  and  said  how  sad  it  all  was. 
But  most  of  us  would  not,  I think, 


NUMBERS 


13 


have  been  very  seriously  disquieted 
by  it.  On  the  other  hand,  we  should 
have  found  many  things  in  the  Athens 
of  Eubulus  to  gratify  us.  ‘ The  demo- 
crats,’ says  the  same  historian  whom 
I have  just  quoted,  ‘ saw  in  Eubulus 
one  of  their  own  set  at  the  head  of 
affairs ; ’ and  I suppose  no  good 
democrat  would  see  that  without 
pleasure.  Moreover,  Eubulus  was  of 
popular  character.  In  one  respect  he 
seems  to  have  resembled  your  own 
‘ heathen  Chinee  * ; he  had  ‘ guileless 
ways,’  says  our  historian,  ‘ in  which  the 
citizens  took  pleasure.’  He  was  also 
a good  speaker,  a thorough  man  of 
business  ; and,  above  all,  he  was  very 
skilful  in  matters  of  finance.  His 
administration  was  both  popular  and 


14 


NUMBERS 


prosperous.  We  should  certainly  have 
said,  most  of  us,  if  we  had  encountered 
somebody  announcing  his  resolve  to 
stand  aside  under  a wall  during  such 
an  administration,  that  he  was  a goose 
for  his  pains  ; and  if  he  had  called  it 
‘ a falling  among  wild  beasts  ’ to  have 
to  live  with  his  fellow-citizens  who  had 
confidence  in  Eubulus,  their  country, 
and  themselves,  we  should  have 
esteemed  him  very  impertinent. 

Yes ; — and  yet  at  the  close  of  that 
administration  of  Eubulus  came  the 
collapse,  and  the  end  of  Athens  as  an 
independent  State.  And  it  was  to 
the  fault  of  Athens  herself  that  the 
collapse  was  owing.  Plato  was  right 
after  all ; the  majority  were  bad,  and 
the  remnant  were  impotent. 


NUMBERS 


15 


So  fared  it  with  that  famous  Athen- 
ian State,  with  the  brilliant  people 
of  art  and  intellect.  Now  let  us  turn 
to  the  people  of  religion.  We  have 
heard  Plato  speaking  of  the  very 
small  remnant  which  honestly  sought 
wisdom.  The  remnant ! — it  is  the 
word  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  also, 
and  especially  is  it  the  word  of  the 
greatest  of  them  all,  Isaiah.  Not 
used  with  the  despondency  of  Plato, 
used  with  far  other  power  informing 
it,  and  with  a far  other  future  await- 
ing it,  filled  with  fire,  filled  with 
hope,  filled  with  faith,  filled  with  joy, 
this  term  itself,  the  remnant , is  yet 
Isaiah’s  term  as  well  as  Plato’s.  The 
texts  are  familiar  to  all  Christendom. 
‘Though  thy  people  Israel  be  as  the 


NUMBERS 


/6 

sand  of  the  sea,  only  a remnant  of 
them  shall  return.’  Even  this  rem- 
nant, a tenth  of  the  whole,  if  so  it 
may  be,  shall  have  to  come  back  into 
the  purging  fire,  and  be  again  cleared 
and  further  reduced  there.  But  never- 
theless, ‘ as  a terebinth  tree,  and  as 
an  oak,  whose  substance  is  in  them, 
though  they  be  cut  down,  so  the 
stock  of  that  burned  tenth  'shall  be 
a holy  seed.’ 

Yes,  the  small  remnant  should  be 
a holy  seed  ; but  the  great  majority, 
as  in  democratic  Athens,  so  in  the 
kingdoms  of  the  Hebrew  nation, 
were  unsound,  and  their  State  was 
doomed.  This  was  Isaiah’s  point. 
The  actual  commonwealth  of  the 
‘drunkards’  and  the  ‘blind,’  as  he 


NUMBERS 


17 


calls  them,  in  Israel  and  Judah,  of 
the  dissolute  grandees  and  gross  and 
foolish  common  people,  of  the  great 
majority,  must  perish  ; its  perishing 
was  the  necessary  stage  towards  a 
happier  future.  And  Isaiah  was 
right,  as  Plato  was  right.  No  doubt 
to  most  of  us,  if  we  had  been  there 
to  see  it,  the  kingdom  of  Ephraim 
or  of  Judah,  the  society  of  Samaria 
and  Jerusalem,  would  have  seemed 
to  contain  a great  deal  else  besides 
dissolute  grandees  and  foolish  com- 
mon people.  No  doubt  we  should 
have  thought  parts  of  their  policy 
serious,  and  some  of  their  alliances 
promising.  No  doubt,  when  we  read 
the  Hebrew  prophets  now,  with  the 
larger  and  more  patient  temper  of 


c 


NUMBERS 


a different  race  and  an  augmented 
experience,  we  often  feel  the  blame 
and  invective  to  be  too  absolute. 
Nevertheless,  as  to  his  grand  point, 
Isaiah,  I say,  was  right.  The  major- 
ity in  the  Jewish  State,  whatever  they 
might  think  or  say,  whatever  their 
guides  and  flatterers  might  think  or 
say,  the  majority  were  unsound,  and 
their  unsoundness  must  be  their  ruin. 

Isaiah,  however,  does  not  make  his 
remnant  confine  itself,  like  Plato’s,  to 
standing  aside  under  a wall  during 
this  life  and  then  departing  in  mild 
temper  and  good  hope  when  the  time 
for  departure  comes  ; Isaiah’s  remnant 
saves  the  State.  Undoubtedly  he 
means  to  represent  it  as  doing  so. 
Undoubtedly  he  imagines  his  Prince 


NUMBERS 


of  the  house  of  David  who  is  to  be 
born  within  a year’s  time,  his  royal 
and  victorious  Immanuel,  he  imagines 
him  witnessing  as  a child  the  chastise- 
ment of  Ephraim  and  the  extirpation 
of  the  bad  majority  there ; then  wit- 
nessing as  a youth  the  chastisement 
of  Judah  and  the  extirpation  of  the 
bad  majority  there  also ; but  finally, 
in  mature  life,  reigning  over  a State 
renewed,  preserved,  and  enlarged,  a 
greater  and  happier  kingdom  of  the 
chosen  people. 

Undoubtedly  Isaiah  conceives  his 
remnant  in  this  wise  ; undoubtedly 
he  imagined  for  it  a part  which,  in 
strict  truth,  it  did  not  play,  and  could 
not  play.  So  manifest  was  the  non- 
fulfilment  of  his  prophecy,  taken 


20 


NUMBERS 


strictly,  that  ardent  souls  feeding 
upon  his  words  had  to  wrest  them 
from  their  natural  meaning,  and  to 
say  that  Isaiah  directly  meant  some- 
thing which  he  did  not  directly  mean. 
Isaiah,  like  Plato,  with  inspired  in- 
sight foresaw  that  the  world  before 
his  eyes,  the  world  of  actual  life,  the 
State  and  city  of  the  unsound  major- 
ity, could  not  stand.  Unlike  Plato, 
Isaiah  announced  with  faith  and  joy 
a leader  and  a remnant  certain  to 
supersede  them.  But  he  put  the 
leaders  coming,  and  he  put  the  suc- 
cess of  the  leader’s  and  the  remnant’s 
work,  far,  far  too  soon  ; and  his  con- 
ception, in  this  respect,  is  fantastic. 
Plato  betook  himself  for  the  bringing 
in  of  righteousness  to  a visionary 


NUMBERS 


21 


republic  in  the  clouds  ; Isaiah, — and  it 
is  the  immortal  glory  of  him  and  of  his 
race  to  have  done  so, — brought  it  in 
upon  earth.  But  Immanuel  and  his 
reign,  for  the  eighth  century  before 
Christ,  were  fantastic.  For  the  king- 
dom of  Judah  they  were  fantastic. 
Immanuel  and  the  remnant  could  not 
come  to  reign  under  the  conditions 
there  and  then  offered  to  them  ; the 
thing  was  impossible. 

The  reason  of  the  impossibility  is 
quite  simple.  The  scale  of  things,  in 
petty  States  like  Judah  and  Athens, 
is  too  small  ; the  numbers  are  too 
scanty.  Admit  that  for  the  world,  as 
we  hitherto  know  it,  what  the  philo- 
sophers and  prophets  say  is  true : 
that  the  majority  are  unsound.  Even 


22 


NUMBERS 


in  communities  with  exceptional  gifts, 
even  in  the  Jewish  State,  the  Athenian 
State,  the  majority  are  unsound.  But 
there  is  ‘the  remnant.’  Now  the  im- 
portant thing,  as  regards  States  such 
as  Judah  and  Athens,  is  not  that  the 
remnant  bears  but  a small  proportion 
to  the  majority ; the  remnant  always 
bears  a small  proportion  to  the  ma- 
jority. The  grave  thing  for  States 
like  Judah  and  Athens  is,  that  the 
remnant  must  in  positive  bulk  be 
so  small,  and  therefore  so  powerless 
for  reform.  To  be  a voice  outside 
the  State,  speaking  to  mankind  or  to 
the  future,  perhaps  shaking  the  actual 
State  to  pieces  in  doing  so,  one  man 
will  suffice.  But  to  reform  the  State 
in  order  to  save  it,  to  preserve  it  by 


NUMBERS 


changing  it,  a body  of  workers  is 
needed  as  well  as  a leader ; — a con- 
siderable body  of  workers,  placed  at 
many  points,  and  operating  in  many 
directions.  This  considerable  body 
of  workers  for  good  is  what  is  wanting 
in  petty  States  such  as  were  Athens 
and  Judah.  It  is  said  that  the 
Athenian  State  had  in  all  but 
350,000  inhabitants.  It  is  calculated 
that  the  population  of  the  kingdom 
of  Judah  did  not  exceed  a million  and 
a quarter.  The  scale  of  things,  I say, 
is  here  too  small,  the  numbers  are  too 
scanty,  to  give  us  a remnant  capable  of 
saving  and  perpetuating  the  commun- 
ity. The  remnant,  in  these  cases,  may 
influence  the  world  and  the  future,  may 
transcend  the  State  and  survive  it ; but 


24 


NUMBERS 


it  cannot  possibly  transform  the  State 
and  perpetuate  the  State : for  such 
a work  it  is  numerically  too  feeble. 

Plato  saw  the  impossibility.  Isaiah 
refused  to  accept  it,  but  facts  were  too 
strong  for  him.  The  Jewish  State 
could  not  be  renewed  and  saved,  and 
he  was  wrong  in  thinking  that  it  could. 
And  therefore  I call  his  grand  point 
this  other,  where  he  was  altogether 
right : that  the  actual  world  of  the 
unsound  majority,  though  it  fancied 
itself  solid,  and  though  most  men 
might  call  it  solid,  could  not  stand. 
Let  us  read  him  again  and  again,  until 
we  fix  in  our  minds  this  true  convic- 
tion of  his,  to  edify  us  whenever  we 
see  such  a world  existing  : his  inde- 
structible conviction  that  such  a world, 


NUMBERS 


25 


with  its  prosperities,  idolatries,  oppres- 
sion, luxury,  pleasures,  drunkards, 
careless  women,  governing  classes, 
systems  of  policy,  strong  alliances, 
shall  come  to  nought  and  pass  away ; 
that  nothing  can  save  it.  Let  us  do 
homage,  also,  to  his  indestructible 
conviction  that  States  are  saved  by 
their  righteous  remnant,  however 
clearly  we  may  at  the  same  time 
recognise  that  his  own  building  on 
this  conviction  was  premature. 

That,  however,  matters  to  us  little. 
For  how  different  is  the  scale  of 
things  in  the  modern  States  to  which 
we  belong,  how  far  greater  are  the 
numbers!  It  is  impossible  to  over- 
rate the  importance  of  the  new  element 
introduced  into  our  calculations  by 


26 


NUMBERS 


increasing  the  size  of  the  remnant. 
And  in  our  great  modern  States, 
where  the  scale  of  things  is  so  large, 
it  does  seem  as  if  the  remnant  might 
be  so  increased  as  to  become  an  actual 
power,  even  though  the  majority  be 
unsound.  Then  the  lover  of  wisdom 
may  come  out  from  under  his  wall, 
the  lover  of  goodness  will  not  be  alone 
among  the  wild  beasts.  To  enable  the 
remnant  to  succeed,  a large  strength- 
ening of  its  numbers  is  everything. 

Here  is  good  hope  for  us,  not  only, 
as  for  Plato’s  recluse,  in  departing 
this  life,  but  while  we  live  and  work 
in  it.  Only,  before  we  dwell  too 
much  on  this  hope,  it  is  advisable  to 
make  sure  that  we  have  earned  the 
right  to  entertain  it.  We  have  earned 


NUMBERS 


2 7 


the  right  to  entertain  it,  only  when 
we  are  at  one  with  the  philosophers 
and  prophets  in  their  conviction  re- 
specting the  world  which  now  is,  the 
world  of  the  unsound  majority ; when 
we  feel  what  they  mean,  and  when  we 
go  thoroughly  along  with  them  in  it. 
Most  of  us,  as  I have  said  already,  would 
by  no  means  have  been  with  them  when 
they  were  here  in  life,  and  most  of  us 
are  not  really  with  them  now.  What 
is  saving  ? Our  institutions,  says  an 
American  ; the  British  Constitution, 
says  an  Englishman ; the  civilising 
mission  of  France,  says  a Frenchman. 
But  Plato  and  the  sages,  when  they 
are  asked  what  is  saving,  answer : 
‘To  love  righteousness,  and  to  be 
convinced  of  the  unprofitableness  of 


28 


NUMBERS 


iniquity.’  And  Isaiah  and  the  pro- 
phets, when  they  are  asked  the  same 
question,  answer  to  just  the  same 
effect : that  what  is  saving  is  to  ‘ order 
one’s  conversation  right  ’ ; to  ‘ cease 
to  do  evil  ’ ; to  ‘ delight  in  the  law  of 
the  Eternal  ’ ; and  to  ‘ make  one’s 
study  in  it  all  day  long.’ 

The  worst  of  it  is,  that  this  loving 
of  righteousness  and  this  delighting 
in  the  law  of  the  Eternal  sound  rather 
vague  to  us.  Not  that  they  are  vague 
really ; indeed,  they  are  less  vague 
than  American  institutions,  or  the 
British  Constitution,  or  the  civilising 
mission  of  France.  But  the  phrases 
sound  vague  because  of  the  quantity 
of  matters  they  cover.  The  thing  is 
to  have  a brief  but  adequate  enumera- 


NUMBERS 


29 


tion  of  these  matters.  The  New 
Testament  tells  us  how  righteousness 
is  composed.  In  England  and  Amer- 
ica we  have  been  brought  up  in 
familiarity  with  the  New  Testament. 
And  so,  before  Mr.  Bradlaugh  on  our 
side  of  the  water,  and  the  Congress 
of  American  Freethinkers  on  yours, 
banish  it  from  our  education  and 
memory,  let  us  take  from  the  New 
Testament  a text  showing  what  it  is 
that  both  Plato  and  the  prophets 
mean  when  they  tell  us  that  we  ought 
to  love  righteousness  and  to  make  our 
study  in  the  law  of  the  Eternal,  but 
that  the  unsound  majority  do  nothing 
of  the  kind.  A score  of  texts  offer 
themselves  in  a moment.  Here  is 
one  which  will  serve  very  well : 


30 


NUMBERS 


‘ Whatsoever  things  are  true,  what- 
soever things  are  elevated,  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  amiable, 
whatsoever  things  are  of  good  report ; 
if  there  be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  be 
any  praise ; have  these  in  your  mind, 
let  your  thoughts  run  upon  these.’ 1 
That  is  what  both  Plato  and  the  pro- 
phets mean  by  loving  righteousness, 
and  making  one’s  study  in  the  law  of 
the  Eternal. 

Now  the  matters  just  enumerated 
do  not  come  much  into  the  heads  of 
most  of  us,  I suppose,  when  we  are 
thinking  of  politics.  But  the  philo- 
sophers and  prophets  maintain  that 
these  matters,  and  not  those  of  which 

1 Philippians , iv.  8. 


NUMBERS 


3i 


the  heads  of  politicians  are  full,  do 
really  govern  politics  and  save 
or  destroy  States.  They  save  or 
destroy  them  by  a silent,  inexorable 
fatality ; while  the  politicians  are 
making  believe,  plausibly  and  noisily, 
with  their  American  institutions, 
British  Constitution,  and  civilising 
mission  of  France.  And  because 
these  matters  are  what  do  really 
govern  politics  and  save  or  destroy 
States,  Socrates  maintained  that  in 
his  time  he  and  a few  philosophers, 
who  alone  kept  insisting  on  the  good 
of  righteousness  and  the  unprofitable- 
ness of  iniquity,  were  the  only  real 
politicians  then  living. 

I say,  if  we  are  to  derive  comfort 
from  the  doctrine  of  the  remnant  (and 


3 2 


NUMBERS 


there  is  great  comfort  to  be  derived 
from  it),  we  must  also  hold  fast  to  the 
austere  but  true  doctrine  as  to  what 
really  governs  politics,  overrides  with 
an  inexorable  fatality  the  combina- 
tions of  the  so-called  politicians,  and 
saves  or  destroys  States.  Having  in 
mind  things  true,  things  elevated, 
things  just,  things  pure,  things  ami- 
able, things  of  good  report ; having 
these  in  mind,  studying  and  loving 
these,  is  what  saves  States. 

There  is  nothing  like  positive  in- 
stances to  illustrate  general  proposi- 
tions of  this  kind,  and  to  make  them 
believed.  I hesitate  to  take  an  in- 
stance from  America.  Possibly  there 
are  some  people  who  think  that 
already,  on  a former  occasion,  I have 


NUMBERS 


33 


said  enough  about  America  without 
duly  seeing  and  knowing  it.  So  I 
will  take  my  instances  from  England, 
and  from  England’s  neighbour  and 
old  co-mate  in  history,  France.  The 
instance  from  England  I will  take 
first.  I will  take  it  from  the  grave 
topic  of  England’s  relations  with  Ire- 
land. I am  not  going  to  reproach 
either  England  or  Ireland.  To  re- 
proach Ireland  here  would  probably 
be  indiscreet.  As  to  England,  any- 
thing I may  have  to  say  against  my 
own  countrymen  I prefer  to  say  at 
home ; America  is  the  last  place 
where  I should  care  to  say  it.  How- 
ever, I have  no  wish  or  intention  now 
to  reproach  either  the  English  or  the 
Irish.  But  I want  to  show  you  from 


D 


34 


NUMBERS 


England’s  relations  with  Ireland 
how  right  the  philosophers  and  pro- 
phets are.  Every  one  knows  that 
there  has  been  conquest  and  confisca- 
tion in  Ireland.  So  there  has  else- 
where. Every  one  knows  that  the 
conquest  and  the  confiscation  have 
been  attended  with  cupidity,  oppres- 
sion, and  ill-usage.  So  they  have 
elsewhere.  ‘ Whatsoever  things  are 
just’  are  not  exactly  the  study,  so  far 
as  I know,  of  conquerors  and  con- 
fiscators  anywhere ; certainly  they 
were  not  the  study  of  the  English 
conquerors  of  Ireland.  A failure  in 
justice  is  a source  of  danger  to  States. 
But  it  may  be  made  up  for  and 
got  over ; it  has  been  made  up  for 
and  got  over  in  many  communities. 


NUMBERS 


35 


England’s  confiscations  in  Ireland  are 
a thing  of  the  past ; the  penal  laws 
against  Catholics  are  a thing  of  the 
past ; much  has  been  done  to  make 
up  for  the  old  failure  in  justice ; 
Englishmen  generally  think  that  it 
has  been  pretty  well  made  up  for,  and 
that  Irishmen  ought  to  think  so  too. 
And  politicians  invent  Land  Acts  for 
curing  the  last  results  of  the  old  failure 
in  justice,  for  insuring  the  contentment 
of  the  Irish  with  us,  and  for  consoli- 
dating the  Union  : and  are  surprised 
and  plaintive  if  it  is  not  consolidated. 
But  now  see  how  much  more  serious 
people  are  the  philosophers  and  pro- 
phets than  the  politicians.  Whatso- 
ever things  are  amiable  ! — the  failure  in 
amiability,  too,  is  a source  of  danger 


36 


NUMBERS 


and  insecurity  to  States,  as  well  as  the 
failure  in  justice.  And  we  English 
are  not  amiable,  or  at  any  rate,  what  in 
this  case  comes  to  the  same  thing,  do 
not  appear  so.  The  politicians  never 
thought  of  that ! Quite  outside  their 
combinations  lies  this  hindrance,  tend- 
ing to  make  their  most  elaborate  com- 
binations ineffectual.  Thus  the  joint 
operation  of  two  moral  causes  together, 
— the  sort  of  causes  which  politicians 
do  not  seriously  regard, — tells  against 
the  designs  of  the  politicians  with 
what  seems  to  be  an  almost  inexor- 
able fatality.  If  there  were  not  the 
failure  in  amiability,  perhaps  the 
original  failure  in  justice  might  by  this 
time  have  been  got  over ; if  there  had 
not  been  the  failure  in  justice,  perhaps 


NUMBERS 


37 


the  failure  in  amiability  might  not 
have  mattered  much.  The  two  fail- 
ures together  create  a difficulty  almost 
insurmountable.  Public  men  in  Eng- 
land keep  saying  that  it  will  be  got 
over.  I hope  that  it  will  be  got  over, 
and  that  the  union  between  England 
and  Ireland  may  become  as  solid  as 
that  between  England  and  Scotland. 
But  it  will  not  become  solid  by  means 
of  the  contrivances  of  the  mere  poli- 
tician, or  without  the  intervention  of 
moral  causes  of  concord  to  heal  the 
mischief  wrought  by  moral  causes  of 
division.  Everything,  in  this  case, 
depends  upon  the  ‘remnant,’  its  num- 
bers and  its  powers  of  action. 

My  second  instance  is  even  more 
important.  It  is  so  important,  and  its 


38 


NUMBERS 


reach  is  so  wide,  that  I must  go  into 
it  with  some  little  fulness.  The 
instance  is  taken  from  France.  To 
France  I have  always  felt  myself 
powerfully  drawn.  People  in  Eng- 
land often  accuse  me  of  liking  France 
and  things  French  far  too  well.  At 
all  events  I have  paid  special  regard 
to  them,  and  am  always  glad  to  con- 
fess how  much  I owe  to  them.  M. 
Sainte-Beuve  wrote  to  me  in  the  last 
years  of  his  life:  ‘You  have  passed 
through  our  life  and  literature  by  a 
deep  inner  line,  which  confers  initia- 
tion, and  which  you  will  never  lose.’ 
Vous  avez  traversd  notre  vie  et  notre 
literature par  une  ligjie  intdrieure,  pro- 
fonde,  qui  fait  les  initids , et  qne  vous 
ne  perdrez  jamais . I wish  I could 


NUMBERS 


39 


think  that  this  friendly  testimony  of 
that  accomplished  and  charming  man, 
one  of  my  chief  benefactors,  were  fully 
deserved.  But  I have  pride  and  plea- 
sure in  quoting  it ; and  I quote  it  to 
bear  me  out  in  saying,  that  whatever 
opinion  I may  express  about  France, 
I have  at  least  been  a not  inattentive 
observer  of  that  great  country,  and 
anything  but  a hostile  one. 

The  question  was  once  asked  by 
the  town  clerk  of  Ephesus : ‘ What 
man  is  there  that  knoweth  not  how 
that  the  city  of  the  Ephesians  is  a 
worshipper  of  the  great  goddess 
Diana  ? ’ Now  really,  when  one  looks 
at  the  popular  literature  of  the  French 
at  this  moment, — their  popular  novels, 
popular  stage  - plays,  popular  news- 


40 


NUMBERS 


papers, — and  at  the  life  of  which  this 
literature  of  theirs  is  the  index,  one 
is  tempted  to  make  a goddess  out  of 
a word  of  their  own,  and  then,  like 
the  town  clerk  of  Ephesus,  to  ask  : 
‘ What  man  is  there  that  knoweth  not 
how  that  the  city  of  the  French  is  a 
worshipper  of  the  great  goddess 
Lubricity  ? 5 Or  rather,  as  Greek  is 
the  classic  and  euphonious  language 
for  names  of  gods  and  goddesses,  let 
us  take  her  name  from  the  Greek 
Testament,  and  call  her  the  goddess 
Aselgeia.  That  goddess  has  always 
been  a sufficient  power  amongst  man- 
kind, and  her  worship  was  generally 
supposed  to  need  restraining  rather 
than  encouraging.  But  here  is  now  a 
whole  popular  literature,  nay,  and  art 


NUMBERS 


4i 


too,  in  France  at  her  service  ! stimu- 
lations and  suggestions  by  her  and  to 
her  meet  one  in  it  at  every  turn.  She 
is  becoming  the  great  recognised 
power  there  ; never  was  anything  like 
it.  M.  Renan  himself  seems  half 
inclined  to  apologise  for  not  having 
paid  her  more  attention.  ‘Nature 
cares  nothing  for  chastity,’  says  he  ; 
Les  frivoles  ont  pent  - etre  raison  ; 
‘ The  gay  people  are  perhaps  in  the 
right.’  Men  even  of  this  force  salute 
her ; but  the  allegiance  now  paid  to 
her,  in  France,  by  the  popular  novel, 
the  popular  newspaper,  the  popular 
play,  is,  one  may  say,  boundless. 

I have  no  wish  at  all  to  preach  to 
the  French;  no  intention  whatever, 
in  what  I now  say,  to  upbraid  or 


42 


NUMBERS 


wound  them.  I simply  lay  my  finger 
on  a fact  in  their  present  condition  ; 
a fact  insufficiently  noticed,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  and  yet  extremely  potent  for 
mischief.  It  is  well  worth  while  to 
trace  the  manner  of  its  growth  and 
action. 

The  French  have  always  had  a 
leaning  to  the  goddess  of  whom  we 
speak,  and  have  been  willing  enough 
to  let  the  world  know  of  their  leaning, 
to  pride  themselves  on  their  Gaulish 
salt,  their  gallantry,  and  so  on.  But 
things  have  come  to  their  present 
head  gradually.  Catholicism  was  an 
obstacle  ; the  serious  element  in  the 
nation  was  another  obstacle.  But  now 
just  see  the  course  which  things  have 
taken,  and  how  they  all,  one  may  say, 


NUMBERS 


43 


have  worked  together  for  this  goddess. 
First,  there  was  the  original  Gaul,  the 
basis  of  the  French  nation  ; the  Gaul, 
gay,  sociable,  quick  of  sentiment, 
quick  of  perception ; apt,  however, 
very  apt,  to  be  presumptuous  and 
puffed  up.  Then  came  the  Roman 
conquest,  and  from  this  we  get  a new 
personage,  the  Gallo- Latin  ; with  the 
Gaulish  qualities  for  a basis,  but  with 
Latin  order,  reason,  lucidity,  added, 
and  also  Latin  sensuality.  Finally, 
we  have  the  Frankish  conquest  and 
the  Frenchman.  The  Frenchman 
proper  is  the  Gallo  - Latin,  with 
Frankish  or  Germanic  qualities  added 
and  infused.  No  mixture  could  be 
better.  The  Germans  have  plenty  of 
faults,  but  in  this  combination  they 


44 


NUMBERS 


seem  not  to  have  taken  hold ; the 
Germans  seem  to  have  given  of  their 
seriousness  and  honesty  to  the  con- 
quered Gallo-Latin,  and  not  of  their 
brutality.  And  mediaeval  France, 
which  exhibits  the  combination  and 
balance,  under  the  influence  then 
exercised  by  Catholicism,  of  Gaulish 
quickness  and  gaiety  with  Latin 
rationality  and  German  seriousness, 
offers  to  our  view  the  soundest  and 
the  most  attractive  stage,  perhaps,  in 
all  French  history. 

But  the  balance  could  not  be  main- 
tained ; at  any  rate,  it  was  not  main- 
tained. Mediaeval  Catholicism  lost 
its  virtue.  The  serious  Germanic 
races  made  the  Reformation,  feeling 
that  without  it  there  was  no  safety 


NUMBERS 


45 


and  continuance  for  those  moral  ideas 
which  they  loved  and  which  were  the 
ground  of  their  being.  France  did 
not  go  with  the  Reformation ; the 
Germanic  qualities  in  her  were  not 
strong  enough  to  make  her  go  with 
it.  ‘France  did  not  want  a reforma- 
tion which  was  a moral  one,’  is 
Michelet’s  account  of  the  matter ; 
La  France  ne  voulait  pas  de  rdforme 
morale.  Let  us  put  the  case  more 
favourably  for  her,  and  say  that  per- 
haps, with  her  quick  perception, 
France  caught  sense,  from  the  very 
outset,  of  that  intellectual  unsound- 
ness and  incompleteness  in  the  Refor- 
mation, which  is  now  so  visible.  But, 
at  any  rate,  the  Reformation  did  not 
carry  France  with  it;  and  the  Ger- 


46 


NUMBERS 


manic  side  in  the  Frenchman,  his 
Germanic  qualities,  thus  received  a 
check.  They  subsisted,  however,  in 
good  force  still ; the  new  knowledge 
and  new  ideas,  brought  by  the  re- 
vival of  letters,  gave  an  animating 
stimulus ; and  in  the  seventeenth 
century  the  Gaulish  gaiety  and  quick- 
ness of  France,  the  Latin  rationality, 
and  the  still  subsisting  German  seri- 
ousness, all  combining  under  the 
puissant  breath  of  the  Renascence, 
produced  a literature,  the  strongest, 
the  most  substantial  and  the  most 
serious  which  the  French  have  ever 
succeeded  in  producing,  and  which 
has,  indeed,  consummate  and  splendid 
excellences. 

Still,  the  Germanic  side  in  the 


NUMBERS 


47 


Frenchman  had  received  a check, 
and  in  the  next  century  this  side 
became  quite  attenuated.  The  Ger- 
manic steadiness  and  seriousness  gave 
way  more  and  more  ; the  Gaulish  salt, 
the  Gaulish  gaiety,  quickness,  senti- 
ment, and  sociability,  the  Latin 
rationality,  prevailed  more  and  more, 
and  had  the  held  nearly  to  them- 
selves. They  produced  a brilliant 
and  most  efficacious  literature, — the 
French  literature  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  goddess  Aselgeia  had 
her  part  in  it ; it  was  a literature  to  be 
praised  with  reserves  ; it  was,  above  all, 
a revolutionary  literature.  But  Euro- 
pean institutions  were  then  in  such 
a superannuated  condition,  straight- 
forward and  just  perception,  free 


48 


NUMBERS 


thought  and  rationality,  were  at  such 
a discount,  that  the  brilliant  French 
literature  in  which  these  qualities 
predominated,  and  which  by  their 
predominance  was  made  revolution- 
ary, had  in  the  eighteenth  century  a 
great  mission  to  fulfil,  and  fulfilled  it 
victoriously. 

The  mission  is  fulfilled,  but  mean- 
while the  Germanic  quality  in  the 
Frenchman  seems  pretty  nearly  to 
have  died  out,  and  the  Gallo-Latin 
in  him  has  quite  got  the  upper  hand. 
Of  course  there  are  individuals  and 
groups  who  are  to  be  excepted ; I 
will  allow  any  number  of  exceptions 
you  please ; and  in  the  mass  of  the 
French  people,  which  works  and  is 
silent,  there  may  be  treasures  of 


NUMBERS 


49 


resource.  But  taking  the  Frenchman 
who  is  commonly  in  view — the  usual 
type  of  speaking,  doing,  vocal,  visible 
Frenchman — we  may  say,  and  he  will 
probably  be  not  at  all  displeased  at 
our  saying,  that  the  German  in  him 
has  nearly  died  out,  and  the  Gallo- 
Latin  has  quite  got  the  upper  hand. 
For  us,  however,  this  means  that  the 
chief  source  of  seriousness  and  of 
moral  ideas  is  failing  and  drying  up 
in  him,  and  that  what  remains  are  the 
sources  of  Gaulish  salt,  and  quickness, 
and  sentiment,  and  sociability,  and 
sensuality,  and  rationality.  And,  of 
course,  the  play  and  working  of  these 
qualities  is  altered  by  their  being  no 
longer  in  combination  with  a dose  of 
German  seriousness,  but  left  to  work 


E 


5° 


NUMBERS 


by  themselves.  Left  to  work  by 
themselves,  they  give  us  what  we 
call  the  homnie  sensuel  moyen , the 
average  sensual  man.  The  highest 
art,  the  art  which  by  its  height,  depth, 
and  gravity  possesses  religiousness, — 
such  as  the  Greeks  had,  the  art  of 
Pindar  and  Phidias ; such  as  the 
Italians  had,  the  art  of  Dante  and 
Michael  Angelo, — this  art,  with  the 
training  which  it  gives  and  the 
standard  which  it  sets  up,  the  French 
have  never  had.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  had  a dose  of  German  serious- 
ness, a Germanic  bent  for  ideas  of 
moral  duty,  which  neither  the  Greeks 
had,  nor  the  Italians.  But  if  this  dies 
out,  what  is  left  is  the  homme  sensuel 
moyen.  This  average  sensual  man 


NUMBERS 


5i 


has  his  very  advantageous  qualities. 
He  has  his  gaiety,  quickness,  senti- 
ment, sociability,  rationality.  He  has 
his  horror  of  sour  strictness,  false 
restraint,  hypocrisy,  obscurantism, 
cretinism,  and  the  rest  of  it.  And 
this  is  very  well ; but  on  the  serious, 
moral  side  he  is  almost  ludicrously 
insufficient.  Fine  sentiments  about 
his  dignity  and  his  honour  and  his 
heart,  about  the  dignity  and  the 
honour  and  the  heart  of  France,  and 
his  adoration  of  her,  do  duty  for  him 
here ; grandiose  phrases  about  the 
spectacle  offered  in  France  and  in  the 
French  Republic  of  the  ideal  for  our 
race,  of  the  dpanouissement  de  /’ dlite 
de  r humanity  ‘ the  coming  into  blow 
of  the  choice  flower  of  humanity.’  In 


52 


NUMBERS 


M.  Victor  Hugo  we  have  (his  wor- 
shippers must  forgive  me  for  saying 
so)  the  average  sensual  man  impas- 
sioned and  grandiloquent ; in  M.  Zola 
we  have  the  average  sensual  man  go- 
ing near  the  ground.  ‘ Happy  the 
son,’  cries  M.  Victor  Hugo,  ‘of  whom 
one  can  say,  “He  has  consoled  his 
mother!”  Happy  the  poet  of  whom 
one  can  say,  “He  has  consoled  his 
country!”’  The  French  themselves, 
even  when  they  are  severest,  call  this 
kind  of  thing  by  only  the  mild  name 
of  emphasis,  ‘ emphase? — other  people 
call  it  fustian.  And  a surly  Johnson 
will  growl  out  in  answer,  at  one  time, 
that  ‘ Patriotism  is  the  last  refuge  of  a 
scoundrel  ’ ; at  another  time,  that  fine 
sentiments  about  ma  mere  are  the  last 


NUMBERS 


53 


refuge  of  a scoundrel.  But  what  they 
really  are  is  the  creed  which  in  France 
the  average  sensual  man  rehearses, 
to  do  duty  for  serious  moral  ideas. 
And,  as  the  result,  we  have  a popular 
literature  and  a popular  art  serving, 
as  has  been  already  said,  the  goddess 
Aselgeia. 

Such  an  art  and  literature  easily 
make  their  way  everywhere.  In 
England  and  America  the  French 
literature  of  the  seventeenth  century 
is  peculiarly  fitted  to  do  great  good, 
and  nothing  but  good  ; it  can  hardly 
be  too  much  studied  by  us.  And  it  is 
studied  by  us  very  little.  The  French 
literature  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
also,  has  qualities  to  do  us  much 
good,  and  we  are  not  likely  to  take 


54 


NUMBERS 


harm  from  its  other  qualities ; we 
may  study  it  to  our  great  profit  and 
advantage.  And  it  is  studied  by  us 
very  little.  The  higher  French  litera- 
ture of  the  present  day  has  more 
knowledge  and  a wider  range  than 
its  great  predecessors,  but  less  sound- 
ness and  perfection,  and  it  exerts 
much  less  influence  than  they  did. 
Action  and  influence  are  now  with 
the  lower  literature  of  France,  with 
the  popular  literature  in  the  service 
of  the  goddess  Aselgeia.  And  this 
popular  modern  French  literature, 
and  the  art  which  corresponds  to  it, 
bid  fair  to  make  their  way  in  England 
and  America  far  better  than  their  pre- 
decessors. They  appeal  to  instincts 
so  universal  and  accessible  ; they 


NUMBERS 


55 


appeal,  people  are  beginning  boldly 
to  say,  to  Nature  herself.  Few  things 
have  lately  struck  me  more  than  M. 
Renan’s  dictum,  which  I have  already 
quoted,  about  what  used  to  be  called 
the  virtue  of  chastity.  The  dictum 
occurs  in  his  very  interesting  auto- 
biography, published  but  the  other 
day.  M.  Renan,  whose  genius  I un- 
feignedly  admire,  is,  I need  hardly 
say,  a man  of  the  most  perfect  pro- 
priety of  life  ; he  has  told  us  so  him- 
self. He  was  brought  up  for  a priest, 
and  he  thinks  it  would  not  have  been 
in  good  taste  for  him  to  become  a free 
liver.  But  this  abstinence  is  a mere 
matter  of  personal  delicacy,  a display 
of  good  and  correct  taste  on  his  own 
part  in  his  own  very  special  circum- 


56 


NUMBERS 


stances.  ‘Nature,’  he  cries,  ‘cares 
nothing  about  chastity.’  What  a slap 
in  the  face  to  the  sticklers  for  ‘ What- 
soever things  are  pure  ’ ! 

I have  had  to  take  a long  sweep  to 
arrive  at  the  point  which  I wished  to 
reach.  If  we  are  to  enjoy  the  benefit, 
I said,  of  the  comfortable  doctrine  of 
the  remnant,  we  must  be  capable  of 
receiving  also,  and  of  holding  fast, 
the  hard  doctrine  of  the  unsoundness 
of  the  majority,  and  of  the  certainty 
that  the  unsoundness  of  the  majority, 
if  it  is  not  withstood  and  remedied, 
must  be  their  ruin.  And  therefore, 
even  though  a gifted  man  like  M. 
Renan  may  be  so  carried  away  by 
the  tide  of  opinion  in  France  where 
he  lives,  as  to  say  that  Nature  cares 


NUMBERS 


57 


nothing  about  chastity,  and  to  see  with 
amused  indulgence  the  worship  of  the 
great  goddess  Lubricity,  let  us  stand 
fast,  and  say  that  her  worship  is  against 
nature,  human  nature,  and  that  it  is 
ruin.  For  this  is  the  test  of  its  being 
against  human  nature,  that  for  human 
societies  it  is  ruin.  And  the  test  is 
one  from  which  there  is  no  escape,  as 
from  the  old  tests  in  such  matters 
there  may  be.  For  if  you  allege  that 
it  is  the  will  of  God  that  we  should 
be  pure,  the  sceptical  Gallo- Latins 
will  tell  you  that  they  do  not  know 
any  such  person.  And  in  like  man- 
ner, if  it  is  said  that  those  who  serve 
the  goddess  Aselgeia  shall  not  inherit 
the  kingdom  of  God,  the  Gallo- Latin 
may  tell  you  that  he  does  not  believe 


NUMBERS 


in  any  such  place.  But  that  the  sure 
tendency  and  upshot  of  things  estab- 
lishes that  the  service  of  the  goddess 
Aselgeia  is  ruin,  that  her  followers  are 
marred  and  stunted  by  it  and  disquali- 
fied for  the  ideal  society  of  the  future, 
is  an  infallible  test  to  employ. 

The  saints  admonish  us  to  let  our 
thoughts  run  upon  whatsoever  things 
are  pure,  if  we  would  inherit  the  king- 
dom of  God ; and  the  divine  Plato 
tells  us  that  we  have  within  us  a 
many -headed  beast  and  a man,  and 
that  by  dissoluteness  we  feed  and 
strengthen  the  beast  in  us,  and  starve 
the  man ; and  finally,  following  the 
divine  Plato  among  the  sages  at  a 
humble  distance,  comes  the  prosaic 
and  unfashionable  Paley,  and  says  in 


NUMBERS 


59 


his  precise  way  that  ‘ this  vice  has  a 
tendency,  which  other  species  of  vice 
have  not  so  directly,  to  unsettle  and 
weaken  the  powers  of  the  understand- 
ing ; as  well  as,  I think,  in  a greater 
degree  than  other  vices,  to  render 
the  heart  thoroughly  corrupt.’  True  ; 
and  once  admitted  and  fostered,  it 
eats  like  a canker,  and  with  difficulty 
can  ever  be  brought  to  let  go  its  hold 
again,  but  for  ever  tightens  it.  Hard- 
ness and  insolence  come  in  its  train  ; 
an  insolence  which  grows  until  it  ends 
by  exasperating  and  alienating  every- 
body ; a hardness  which  grows  until 
the  man  can  at  last  scarcely  take 
pleasure  in  anything,  outside  the  ser- 
vice of  his  goddess,  except  cupidity 
and  greed,  and  cannot  be  touched 


6o 


NUMBERS 


with  emotion  by  any  language  except 
fustian.  Such  are  the  fruits  of  the 
worship  of  the  great  goddess  Aselgeia. 

So,  instead  of  saying  that  Nature 
cares  nothing  about  chastity,  let  us 
say  that  human  nature,  our  nature, 
cares  about  it  a great  deal.  Let 
us  say  that,  by  her  present  popular 
literature,  France  gives  proof  that 
she  is  suffering  from  a dangerous 
and  perhaps  fatal  disease  ; and  that  it 
is  not  clericalism  which  is  the  real 
enemy  to  the  French  so  much  as 
their  goddess  ; and  if  they  can  none  of 
them  see  this  themselves,  it  is  only  a 
sign  of  how  far  the  disease  has  gone, 
and  the  case  is  so  much  the  worse. 
The  case  is  so  much  the  worse  ; and  for 
men  in  such  case  to  be  so  vehemently 


NUMBERS 


61 


busy  about  clerical  and  dynastic  in- 
trigues at  home,  and  about  alliances 
and  colonial  acquisitions  and  purifica- 
tions of  the  flag  abroad,  might  well 
make  one  borrow  of  the  prophets  and 
exclaim,  ‘ Surely  ye  are  perverse  ’ ! 
perverse  to  neglect  your  really  press- 
ing matters  for  those  secondary  ones. 
And  when  the  ingenious  and  inex- 
haustible M.  Blowitz,  of  our  great 
London  Timesy  who  sees  everybody 
and  knows  everything,  when  he  ex- 
pounds the  springs  of  politics  and 
the  causes  of  the  fall  and  success 
of  ministries,  and  the  combinations 
which  have  not  been  tried  but  should 
be,  and  takes  upon  him  the  mystery 
of  things  in  the  way  with  which  we 
are  so  familiar,  — to  this  wise  man 


62 


NUMBERS 


himself  one  is  often  tempted,  again, 
to  say  with  the  prophets:  ‘Yet  the 
Eternal  also  is  wise,  and  will  not  call 
back  his  words.’  M.  Blowitz  is  not 
the  only  wise  one ; the  Eternal  has 
his  wisdom  also,  and  somehow  or 
other  it  is  always  the  Eternal’s  wis- 
dom which  at  last  carries  the  day. 
The  Eternal  has  attached  to  certain 
moral  causes  the  safety  or  the  ruin  of 
States,  and  the  present  popular  litera- 
ture of  France  is  a sign  that  she  has 
a most  dangerous  moral  disease. 

Now  if  the  disease  goes  on  and 
increases,  then,  whatever  sagacious 
advice  M.  Blowitz  may  give,  and 
whatever  political  combinations  may 
be  tried,  and  whether  France  gets 
colonies  or  not,  and  whether  she  allies 


i NUMBERS  63 

herself  with  this  nation  or  with  that, 
things  will  only  go  from  bad  to  worse 
with  her ; she  will  more  and  more 
lose  her  powers  of  soul  and  spirit,  her 
intellectual  productiveness,  her  skill  in 
counsel,  her  might  for  war,  her  formid- 
ableness as  a foe,  her  value  as  an  ally, 
and  the  life  of  that  famous  State  will 
be  more  and  more  impaired,  until  it 
perish.  And  this  is  that  hard  but  true 
doctrine  of  the  sages  and  prophets,  of 
the  inexorable  fatality  of  operation,  in 
moral  failure  of  the  unsound  majority, 
to  impair  and  destroy  States.  But  we 
will  not  talk  or  think  of  destruction  for 
a State  with  such  gifts  and  graces  as 
France,  and  which  has  had  such  a place 
in  history,  and  to  which  we,  many  of 
us,  owe  so  much  delight  and  so  much 


64 


NUMBERS 


good.  And  yet  if  France  had  no 
greater  numbers  than  the  Athens  of 
Plato  or  the  Judah  of  Isaiah,  I do  not 
see  how  she  could  well  escape  out  of 
the  throttling  arms  of  her  goddess  and 
recover.  She  must  recover  through 
a powerful  and  profound  renewal,  a 
great  inward  change,  brought  about 
by  ‘ the  remnant  ’ amongst  her  people  ; 
and,  for  this,  a remnant  small  in  num- 
bers would  not  suffice.  But  in  a 
France  of  thirty -five  millions,  who 
shall  set  bounds  to  the  numbers  of 
the  remnant,  or  to  its  effectualness 
and  power  of  victory  ? 

In  these  United  States  (for  I come 
round  to  the  United  States  at  last) 
you  are  fifty  millions  and  more.  I 
suppose  that,  as  in  England,  as  in 


NUMBERS 


65 


France,  as  everywhere,  so  likewise 
here,  the  majority  of  people  doubt 
very  much  whether  the  majority  is 
unsound ; or,  rather,  they  have  no 
doubt  at  all  about  the  matter,  they  are 
sure  that  it  is  not  unsound.  But  let 
us  consent  to-night  to  remain  to  the 
end  in  the  ideas  of  the  sages  and  pro- 
phets whom  we  have  been  following 
all  along ; and  let  us  suppose  that  in 
the  present  actual  stage  of  the  world, 
as  in  all  the  stages  through  which  the 
world  has  passed  hitherto,  the  majority 
is  and  must  be  in  general  unsound 
everywhere, — even  in  the  United 
States,  even  here  in  New  York  itself. 
Where  is  the  failure  ? I have  already, 
in  the  past,  speculated  in  the  abstract 
about  you,  perhaps,  too  much.  But  I 


F 


66 


NUMBERS 


suppose  that  in  a democratic  commun- 
ity like  this,  with  its  newness,  its  magni- 
tude its  strength,  its  life  of  business,  its 
sheer  freedom  and  equality,  the  danger 
is  in  the  absence  of  the  discipline  of 
respect ; in  hardness  and  materialism, 
exaggeration  and  boastfulness ; in  a 
false  smartness,  a false  audacity,  a 
want  of  soul  and  delicacy.  ‘ Whatso- 
ever things  are  elevated — whatsoever 
things  are  nobly  serious,  have  true 
elevation,1 — that  perhaps,  in  our  cata- 
logue of  maxims  which  are  to  possess 
the  mind,  is  the  maxim  which  points 
to  where  the  failure  of  the  unsound 
majority,  in  a great  democracy  like 
yours,  will  probably  lie.  At  any  rate 
let  us  for  the  moment  agree  to  sup- 

1 "Ocra  (T€/jlv a. 


NUMBERS 


6 7 


pose  so.  And  the  philosophers  and 
the  prophets,  whom  I at  any  rate  am 
disposed  to  believe,  and  who  say  that 
moral  causes  govern  the  standing  and 
the  falling  of  States,  will  tell  us  that 
the  failure  to  mind  whatsoever  things 
are  elevated  must  impair  with  an 
inexorable  fatality  the  life  of  a nation, 
just  as  the  failure  to  mind  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  or  whatsoever  things 
are  amiable,  or  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  will  impair  it ; and  that  if  the 
failure  to  mind  whatsoever  things  are 
elevated  should  be  real  in  your  Ameri- 
can democracy,  and  should  grow  into 
a disease,  and  take  firm  hold  on  you, 
then  the  life  of  even  these  great  United 
States  must  inevitably  suffer  and  be  im- 
paired more  and  more,  until  it  perish. 


68 


NUMBERS 


Then  from  this  hard  doctrine  we 
will  betake  ourselves  to  the  more 
comfortable  doctrine  of  the  remnant. 
‘ The  remnant  shall  return shall 
‘convert  and  be  healed’  itself  first, 
and  shall  then  recover  the  unsound 
majority.  And  you  are  fifty  millions 
and  growing  apace.  What  a remnant 
yours  may  be,  surely ! A remnant 
of  how  great  numbers,  how  mighty 
strength,  how  irresistible  efficacy ! 
Yet  we  must  not  go  too  fast,  either 
nor  make  too  sure  of  our  efficacious 
remnant.  Mere  multitude  will  not 
give  us  a saving  remnant  with  cer- 
tainty. The  Assyrian  Empire  had 
multitude,  the  Roman  Empire  had 
multitude ; yet  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  could  produce  a sufficing 


NUMBERS 


remnant  any  more  than  Athens  or 
Judah  could  produce  it,  and  both 
Assyria  and  Rome  perished  like 
Athens  and  Judah. 

But  you  are  something  more  than 
a people  of  fifty  millions.  You  are 
fifty  millions  mainly  sprung,  as  we  in 
England  are  mainly  sprung,  from  that 
German  stock  which  has  faults  indeed, 
— faults  which  have  diminished  the 
extent  of  its  influence,  diminished  its 
power  of  attraction  and  the  interest  of 
its  history,  and  which  seems  moreover 
just  now,  from  all  I can  see  and  hear, 
to  be  passing  through  a not  very 
happy  moment,  morally,  in  Germany 
proper.  Yet  of  the  German  stock  it 
is,  I think,  true,  as  my  father  said 
more  than  fifty  years  ago,  that  it  has 


70 


NUMBERS 


been  a stock  ‘ of  the  most  moral  races 
of  men  that  the  world  has  yet  seen, 
with  the  soundest  laws,  the  least 
violent  passions,  the  fairest  domestic 
and  civil  virtues.’  You  come,  there- 
fore, of  about  the  best  parentage  which 
a modern  nation  can  have.  Then 
you  have  had,  as  we  in  England  have 
also  had,  but  more  entirely  than  we 
and  more  exclusively,  the  Puritan 
discipline.  Certainly  I am  not  blind 
to  the  faults  of  that  discipline.  Cer- 
tainly I do  not  wish  it  to  remain  in 
possession  of  the  field  for  ever,  or  too 
long.  But  as  a stage  and  a discipline, 
and  as  means  for  enabling  that  poor 
inattentive  and  immoral  creature,  man, 
to  love  and  appropriate  and  make  part 
of  his  being  divine  ideas,  on  which  he 


NUMBERS 


7 


could  not  otherwise  have  laid  or  kept 
hold,  the  discipline  of  Puritanism  has 
been  invaluable  ; and  the  more  I read 
history,  the  more  I see  of  mankind, 
the  more  I recognise  its  value.  Well, 
then,  you  are  not  merely  a multitude 
of  fifty  millions  ; you  are  fifty  millions 
sprung  from  this  excellent  Germanic 
stock,  having  passed  through  this 
excellent  Puritan  discipline,  and  set  in 
this  enviable  and  unbounded  country. 
Even  supposing,  therefore,  that  by  the 
necessity  of  things  your  majority  must 
in  the  present  stage  of  the  world  prob- 
ably be  unsound,  what  a remnant,  I 
say, — what  an  incomparable,  all -trans- 
forming remnant, — you  may  fairly 
hope  with  your  numbers,  if  things  go 
happily,  to  have! 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE 


Practical  people  talk  with  a smile 
of  Plato  and  of  his  absolute  ideas ; 
and  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that 
Plato’s  ideas  do  often  seem  unprac- 
tical and  impracticable,  and  especially 
when  one  views  them  in  connexion 
with  the  life  of  a great  work-a-day 
world  like  the  United  States.  The 
necessary  staple  of  the  life  of  such  a 
world  Plato  regards  with  disdain ; 
handicraft  and  trade  and  the  work- 
ing professions  he  regards  with  dis- 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  73 

dain  ; but  what  becomes  of  the  life 
of  an  industrial  modern  community 
if  you  take  handicraft  and  trade  and 
the  working  professions  out  of  it  ? 
The  base  mechanic  arts  and  handi- 
crafts, says  Plato,  bring  about  a 
natural  weakness  in  the  principle  of 
excellence  in  a man,  so  that  he  can- 
not govern  the  ignoble  growths  in 
him,  but  nurses  them,  and  cannot 
understand  fostering  any  other.  Those 
who  exercise  such  arts  and  trades,  as 
they  have  their  bodies,  he  says,  marred 
by  their  vulgar  businesses,  so  they 
have  their  souls,  too,  bowed  and 
broken  by  them.  And  if  one  of 
these  uncomely  people  has  a mind  to 
seek  self-culture  and  philosophy,  Plato 
compares  him  to  a bald  little  tinker, 


74  L1TERA  J URE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

who  has  scraped  together  money,  and 
has  got  his  release  from  service,  and 
has  had  a bath,  and  bought  a new 
coat,  and  is  rigged  out  like  a bride- 
groom about  to  marry  the  daughter 
of  his  master  who  has  fallen  into  poor 
and  helpless  estate. 

Nor  do  the  working  professions  fare 
any  better  than  trade  at  the  hands  of 
Plato.  He  draws  for  us  an  inimitable 
picture  of  the  working  lawyer,  and  of 
his  life  of  bondage  ; he  shows  howT  this 
bondage  from  his  youth  up  has  stunted 
and  warped  him,  and  made  him  small 
and  crooked  of  soul,  encompassing  him 
with  difficulties  which  he  is  not  man 
enough  to  rely  on  justice  and  truth  as 
means  to  encounter,  but  has  recourse, 
for  help  out  of  them,  to  falsehood  and 


LITERA  TURK  AND  SCIENCE 


75 


wrong.  And  so,  says  Plato,  this  poor 
creature  is  bent  and  broken,  and  grows 
up  from  boy  to  man  without  a particle 
of  soundness  in  him,  although  exceed- 
ingly smart  and  clever  in  his  own 
esteem. 

One  cannot  refuse  to  admire  the 
artist  who  draws  these  pictures.  But 
we  say  to  ourselves  that  his  ideas 
show  the  influence  of  a primitive  and 
obsolete  order  of  things,  when  the 
warrior  caste  and  the  priestly  caste 
were  alone  in  honour,  and  the  humble 
work  of  the  world  was  done  by  slaves. 
We  have  now  changed  all  that ; the 
modern  majority  consists  in  work,  as 
Emerson  declares  ; and  in  work,  we 
may  add,  principally  of  such  plain  and 
dusty  kind  as  the  work  of  cultivators 


7 6 LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

of  the  ground,  handicraftsmen,  men  of 
trade  and  business,  men  of  the  work- 
ing professions.  Above  all  is  this 
true  in  a great  industrious  community 
such  as  that  of  the  United  States. 

Now  education,  many  people  go  on 
to*  say,  is  still  mainly  governed  by  the 
ideas  of  men  like  Plato,  who  lived 
when  the  warrior  caste  and  the 
priestly  or  philosophical  class  were 
alone  in  honour,  and  the  really  useful 
part  of  the  community  were  slaves. 
It  is  an  education  fitted  for  persons 
of  leisure  in  such  a community.  This 
education  passed  from  Greece  and 
Rome  to  the  feudal  communities  of 
Europe,  where  also  the  warrior  caste 
and  the  priestly  caste  were  alone  held 
in  honour,  and  where  the  really  useful 


n LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  77 

and  working  part  of  the  community, 
though  not  nominally  slaves  as  in  the 
pagan  world,  were  practically  not  much 
better  off  than  slaves,  and  not  more 
seriously  regarded.  And  how  absurd 
it  is,  people  end  by  saying,  to  inflict 
this  education  upon  an  industrious 
modern  community,  where  very  few 
indeed  are  persons  of  leisure,  and  the 
mass  to  be  considered  has  not  leisure, 
but  is  bound,  for  its  own  great  good, 
and  for  the  great  good  of  the  world  at 
large,  to  plain  labour  and  to  industrial 
pursuits,  and  the  education  in  question 
tends  necessarily  to  make  men  dis- 
satisfied with  these  pursuits  and  un- 
fitted for  them  ! 

That  is  what  is  said.  So  far  I must 
defend  Plato,  as  to  plead  that  his  view 


78  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

of  education  and  studies  is  in  the 
general,  as  it  seems  to  me,  sound 
enough,  and  fitted  for  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men,  whatever  their  pur- 
suits may  be.  ‘ An  intelligent  man,’ 
says  Plato,  ‘ will  prize  those  studies 
which  result  in  his  soul  getting  sober- 
ness, righteousness,  and  wisdom,  and 
will  less  value  the  others.’  I cannot 
consider  that  a bad  description  of  the 
aim  of  education,  and  of  the  motives 
which  should  govern  us  in  the  choice 
of  studies,  whether  we  are  preparing 
ourselves  for  a hereditary  seat  in  the 
English  House  of  Lords  or  for  the 
pork  trade  in  Chicago. 

Still  I admit  that  Plato’s  world  was 
not  ours,  that  his  scorn  of  trade  and 
handicraft  is  fantastic,  that  he  had  no 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  79 

conception  of  a great  industrial  com- 
munity such  as  that  of  the  United  States, 
and  that  such  a community  must  and 
will  shape  its  education  to  suit  its  own 
needs.  If  the  usual  education  handed 
down  to  it  from  the  past  does  not  suit 
it,  it  will  certainly  before  long  drop 
this  and  try  another.  The  usual  edu- 
cation in  the  past  has  been  mainly 
literary.  The  question  is  whether  the 
studies  which  were  long  supposed  to 
be  the  best  for  all  of  us  are  practically 
the  best  now  ; whether  others  are  not 
better.  The  tyranny  of  the  past, 
many  think,  weighs  on  us  injuriously 
in  the  predominance  given  to  letters 
in  education.  The  question  is  raised 
whether,  to  meet  the  needs  of  our 
modern  life,  the  predominance  ought 


80  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

not  now  to  pass  from  letters  to  science ; 
and  naturally  the  question  is  nowhere 
raised  with  more  energy  than  here  in 
the  United  States.  The  design  of 
abasing  what  is  called  ‘ mere  literary 
instruction  and  education,’  and  of  ex- 
alting what  is  called  ‘ sound,  extensive, 
and  practical  scientific  knowledge,’ 
is,  in  this  intensely  modern  world  of 
the  United  States,  even  more  perhaps 
than  in  Europe,  a very  popular  design, 
and  makes  great  and  rapid  progress. 

I am  going  to  ask  whether  the 
present  movement  for  ousting  letters 
from  their  old  predominance  in  educa- 
tion, and  for  transferring  the  predom- 
inance in  education  to  the  natural 
sciences,  whether  this  brisk  and 
flourishing  movement  ought  to  pre- 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  Si 


vail,  and  whether  it  is  likely  that  in 
the  end  it  really  will  prevail.  An 
objection  may  be  raised  which  I will 
anticipate.  My  own  studies  have 
been  almost  wholly  in  letters,  and  my 
visits  to  the  field  of  the  natural 
sciences  have  been  very  slight  and 
inadequate,  although  those  sciences 
have  always  strongly  moved  my 
curiosity.  A man  of  letters,  it  will 
perhaps  be  said,  is  not  competent 
to  discuss  the  comparative  merits  of 
letters  and  natural  science  as  means 
of  education.  To  this  objection  I 
reply,  first  of  all,  that  his  incompet- 
ence, if  he  attempts  the  discus- 
sion but  is  really  incompetent  for  it, 
will  be  abundantly  visible ; nobody 
will  be  taken  in  ; he  will  have  plenty 


LITERA  TURE  AND  SCIENCE 


of  sharp  observers  and  critics  to  save 
mankind  from  that  danger.  But  the 
line  I am  going  to  follow  is,  as  you 
will  soon  discover,  so  extremely  simple, 
that  perhaps  it  may  be  followed  with- 
out failure  even  by  one  who  for  a more 
ambitious  line  of  discussion  would  be 
quite  incompetent. 

Some  of  you  may  possibly  remem- 
ber a phrase  of  mine  which  has  been 
the  object  of  a good  deal  of  comment ; 
an  observation  to  the  effect  that  in 
our  culture,  the  aim  being  to  know 
ourselves  and  the  world , we  have,  as 
the  means  to  this  end,  to  know  the 
best  which  has  been  thought  and  said 
in  the  world.  A man  of  science,  who 
is  also  an  excellent  writer  and  the 
very  prince  of  debaters,  Professor 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  83 

Huxley,  in  a discourse  at  the  opening 
of  Sir  Josiah  Mason’s  college  at 
Birmingham,  laying  hold  of  this 
phrase,  expanded  it  by  quoting  some 
more  words  of  mine,  which  are  these  : 
‘ The  civilised  world  is  to  be  regarded 
as  now  being,  for  intellectual  and 
spiritual  purposes,  one  great  con- 
federation, bound  to  a joint  action 
and  working  to  a common  result ; and 
whose  members  have  for  their  proper 
outfit  a knowledge  of  Greek,  Roman, 
and  Eastern  antiquity,  and  of  one 
another.  Special  local  and  tempo- 
rary advantages  being  put  out  of 
account,  that  modern  nation  will  in  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual  sphere  make 
most  progress,  which  most  thoroughly 
carries  out  this  programme.’ 


84  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

Now  on  my  phrase,  thus  enlarged, 
Professor  Huxley  remarks  that  when 
I speak  of  the  above-mentioned  know- 
ledge as  enabling  us  to  know  our- 
selves and  the  world,  I assert  litera- 
ture to  contain  the  materials  which 
suffice  for  thus  making  us  know  our- 
selves and  the  world.  But  it  is  not 
by  any  means  clear,  says  he,  that 
after  having  learnt  all  which  ancient 
and  modern  literatures  have  to  tell 
us,  we  have  laid  a sufficiently  broad 
and  deep  foundation  for  that  criticism 
of  life,  that  knowledge  of  ourselves 
and  the  world,  which  constitutes  cul- 
ture. On  the  contrary,  Professor 
Huxley  declares  that  he  finds  himself 
‘ wholly  unable  to  admit  that  either 
nations  or  individuals  will  really 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  85 

advance,  if  their  outfit  draws  nothing 
from  the  stores  of  physical  science. 
An  army  without  weapons  of  pre- 
cision, and  with  no  particular  base  of 
operations,  might  more  hopefully 
enter  upon  a campaign  on  the  Rhine, 
than  a man,  devoid  of  a knowledge 
of  what  physical  science  has  done  in 
the  last  century,  upon  a criticism  of 
life.’ 

This  shows  how  needful  it  is  for 
those  who  are  to  discuss  any  matter 
together,  to  have  a common  under- 
standing as  to  the  sense  of  the  terms 
they  employ, — how  needful,  and  how 
difficult.  What  Professor  Huxley 
says,  implies  just  the  reproach  which 
is  so  often  brought  against  the  study 
of  belles  lettres , as  they  are  called  : 


86  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

that  the  study  is  an  elegant  one,  but 
slight  and  ineffectual ; a smattering 
of  Greek  and  Latin  and  other  orna- 
mental things,  of  little  use  for  any 
one  whose  object  is  to  get  at  truth, 
and  to  be  a practical  man.  So,  too, 
M.  Renan  talks  of  the  ‘superficial 
humanism  ’ of  a school-course  which 
treats  us  as  if  we  were  all  going  to 
be  poets,  writers,  preachers,  orators, 
and  he  opposes  this  humanism  to 
positive  science,  or  the  critical  search 
after  truth.  And  there  is  always  a 
tendency  in  those  who  are  remon- 
strating against  the  predominance  of 
letters  in  education,  to  understand  by 
letters  belles  lettres , and  by  belles  lettres 
a superficial  humanism,  the  opposite 
of  science  or  true  knowledge. 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  87 

But  when  we  talk  of  knowing 
Greek  and  Roman  antiquity,  for  in- 
stance, which  is  the  knowledge  people 
have  called  the  humanities,  I for  my 
part  mean  a knowledge  which  is 
something  more  than  a superficial 
humanism,  mainly  decorative.  ‘ I call 
all  teaching  scientific / says  Wolf,  the 
critic  of  Homer,  ‘ which  is  systematic- 
ally laid  out  and  followed  up  to 
its  original  sources.  For  example : 
a knowledge  of  classical  antiquity 
is  scientific  when  the  remains  of 
classical  antiquity  are  correctly 
studied  in  the  original  languages.’ 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Wolf  is 
perfectly  right ; that  all  learning  is 
scientific  which  is  systematically  laid 
out  and  followed  up  to  its  original 


88  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

sources,  and  that  a genuine  humanism 
is  scientific. 

When  I speak  of  knowing  Greek 
and  Roman  antiquity,  therefore,  as 
a help  to  knowing  ourselves  and  the 
world,  I mean  more  than  a know- 
ledge of  so  much  vocabulary,  so  much 
grammar,  so  many  portions  of  authors 
in  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages, 
I mean  knowing  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  and  their  life  and  genius, 
and  what  they  were  and  did  in  the 
world  ; what  we  get  from  them,  and 
what  is  its  value.  That,  at  least,  is 
the  ideal ; and  when  we  talk  of 
endeavouring  to  know  Greek  and 
Roman  antiquity,  as  a help  to  know- 
ing ourselves  and  the  world,  we  mean 
endeavouring  so  to  know  them  as  to 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  89 

satisfy  this  ideal,  however  much  we 
may  still  fall  short  of  it. 

The  same  also  as  to  knowing  our 
own  and  other  modern  nations,  with 
the  like  aim  of  getting  to  understand 
ourselves  and  the  world.  To  know 
the  best  that  has  been  thought  and 
said  by  the  modern  nations,  is  to 
know,  says  Professor  Huxley,  ‘only 
what  modern  literatures  have  to  tell 
us ; it  is  the  criticism  of  life  con- 
tained in  modern  literature.’  And 
yet  ‘ the  distinctive  character  of  our 
times,’  he  urges,  Ties  in  the  vast  and 
constantly  increasing  part  which  is 
played  by  natural  knowledge.’  And 
how,  therefore,  can  a man,  devoid  of 
knowledge  of  what  physical  science 
has  done  in  the  last  century,  enter 


90  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  11 

hopefully  upon  a criticism  of  modern 
life  ? 

Let  us,  I say,  be  agreed  about  the 
meaning  of  the  terms  we  are  using. 
I talk  of  knowing  the  best  which 
has  been  thought  and  uttered  in  the 
world ; Professor  Huxley  says  this 
means  knowing  literature.  Literature 
is  a large  word  ; it  may  mean  every- 
thing written  with  letters  or  printed 
in  a book.  Euclid’s  Elements  and 
Newtons  Principia  are  thus  litera- 
ture. All  knowledge  that  reaches  us 
through  books  is  literature.  But  by 
literature  Professor  Huxley  means 
belles  lettres.  He  means  to  make 
me  say,  that  knowing  the  best  which 
has  been  thought  and  said  by  the 
modern  nations  is  knowing  their  belles 


LITERA  TURK  AND  SCIENCE 


9i 


y'  lettres  and  no  more.  And  this  is  no 
sufficient  equipment,  he  argues,  for  a 
criticism  of  modern  life.  But  as  I do 
not  mean,  by  knowing  ancient  Rome, 
knowing  merely  more  or  less  of  Latin 
belles  lettres , and  taking  no  account 
of  Rome’s  military,  and  political,  and 
legal,  and  administrative  work  in  the 
world  ; and  as,  by  knowing  ancient 
Greece,  I understand  knowing  her 
as  the  giver  of  Greek  art,  and  the 
guide  to  a free  and  right  use  of  reason 
and  to  scientific  method,  and  the 
founder  of  our  mathematics  and 
physics  and  astronomy  and  biology, 
— I understand  knowing  her  as  all 
this,  and  not  merely  knowing  certain 
Greek  poems,  and  histories,  and  treat- 
ises, and  speeches, — so  as  to  the  know- 


92  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

ledge  of  modern  nations  also.  By 
knowing  modern  nations,  I mean  not 
merely  knowing  their  belles  lettres , but 
knowing  also  what  has  been  done  by 
such  men  as  Copernicus,  Galileo,  New- 
ton, Darwin.  ‘ Our  ancestors  learned,’ 
says  Professor  Huxley,  ‘that  the  earth 
is  the  centre  of  the  visible  universe, 
and  that  man  is  the  cynosure  of 
things  terrestrial ; and  more  especi- 
ally was  it  inculcated  that  the  course 
of  nature  had  no  fixed  order,  but 
that  it  could  be,  and  constantly 
was,  altered.’  But  for  us  now,  con- 
tinues Professor  Huxley,  ‘the  notions 
of  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the 
world  entertained  by  our  forefathers 
are  no  longer  credible.  It  is  very 
certain  that  the  earth  is  not  the  chief 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  93 

body  in  the  material  universe,  and 
that  the  world  is  not  subordinated 
to  man’s  use.  It  is  even  more  certain 
that  nature  is  the  expression  of  a 
definite  order,  with  which  nothing 
interferes.’  ‘ And  yet,’  he  cries, 

‘ the  purely  classical  education  advo- 
cated by  the  representatives  of  the 
humanists  in  our  day  gives  no  inkling 
of  all  this  ! ’ 

In  due  place  and  time  I will  just 
touch  upon  that  vexed  question  of 
classical  education ; but  at  present 
the  question  is  as  to  what  is  meant 
by  knowing  the  best  which  modern 
nations  have  thought  and  said.  It 
is  not  knowing  their  belles  lettres 
merely  which  is  meant.  To  know 
Italian  belles  lettres  is  not  to  know 


94  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

Italy,  and  to  know  English  belles 
let  l res  is  not  to  know  England 
Into  knowing  Italy  and  England 
there  comes  a great  deal  more, 
Galileo  and  Newton  amongst  it. 
The  reproach  of  being  a superficial 
humanism,  a tincture  of  belles  lettres , 
may  attach  rightly  enough  to  some 
other  disciplines ; but  to  the  parti- 
cular discipline  recommended  when 
I proposed  knowing  the  best  that 
has  been  thought  and  said  in  the 
world,  it  does  not  apply.  In  that  best 
I certainly  include  what  in  modern 
times  has  been  thought  and  said  by 
the  great  observers  and  knowers  of 
nature. 

There  is,  therefore,  really  no  ques- 
tion between  Professor  Huxley  and 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  95 

me  as  to  whether  knowing  the  great 
results  of  the  modern  scientific  study 
of  nature  is  not  required  as  a part  of 
our  culture,  as  well  as  knowing  the 
products  of  literature  and  art.  But 
to  follow  the  processes  by  which  those 
results  are  reached,  ought,  say  the 
friends  of  physical  science,  to  be  made 
the  staple  of  education  for  the  bulk  of 
mankind.  And  here  there  does  arise 
a question  between  those  whom  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  calls  with  playful  sar- 
casm ‘ the  Levites  of  culture,’  and 
those  whom  the  poor  humanist  is 
sometimes  apt  to  regard  as  its  Ne- 
buchadnezzars. 

The  great  results  of  the  scientific 
investigation  of  nature  we  are  agreed 
upon  knowing,  but  how  much  of  our 


96  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

study  are  we  bound  to  give  to  the 
processes  by  which  those  results  are 
reached  ? The  results  have  their 
visible  bearing  on  human  life.  But 
all  the  processes,  too,  all  the  items 
of  fact,  by  which  those  results  are 
reached  and  established,  are  interest- 
ing. All  knowledge  is  interesting  to 
a wise  man,  and  the  knowledge  of 
nature  is  interesting  to  all  men.  It 
is  very  interesting  to  know,  that,  from 
the  albuminous  white  of  the  egg,  the 
chick  in  the  egg  gets  the  materials 
for  its  flesh,  bones,  blood,  and  feathers; 
while,  from  the  fatty  yolk  of  the  egg, 
it  gets  the  heat  and  energy  which 
enable  it  at  length  to  break  its  shell 
and  begin  the  world.  It  is  less  in- 
teresting, perhaps,  but  still  it  is  inter- 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  97 

esting,  to  know  that  when  a taper 
burns,  the  wax  is  converted  into 
carbonic  acid  and  water.  Moreover, 
it  is  quite  true  that  the  habit  of  deal- 
ing with  facts,  which  is  given  by  the 
study  of  nature,  is,  as  the  friends  of 
physical  science  praise  it  for  being,  an 
excellent  discipline.  The  appeal,  in 
the  study  of  nature,  is  constantly  to 
observation  and  experiment ; not  only 
is  it  said  that  the  thing  is  so,  but  we 
can  be  made  to  see  that  it  is  so.  Not 
only  does  a man  tell  us  that  when  a 
taper  burns  the  wax  is  converted  into 
carbonic  acid  and  water,  as  a man 
may  tell  us,,  if  he  likes,  that  Charon 
is  punting  his  ferry-boat  on  the  river 
Styx,  or  that  Victor  Hugo  is  a sublime 
poet,  or  Mr.  Gladstone  the  most  ad- 


H 


98  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

mirable  of  statesmen  ; but  we  are 
made  to  see  that  the  conversion  into 
carbonic  acid  and  water  does  actually 
happen.  This  reality  of  natural  know- 
ledge it  is,  which  makes  the  friends  of 
physical  science  contrast  it,  as  a know- 
ledge of  things,  with  the  humanist’s 
knowledge,  which  is,  say  they,  a 
knowledge  of  words.  And  hence 
Professor  Huxley  is  moved  to  lay  it 
down  that,  ‘ for  the  purpose  of  attain- 
ing real  culture,  an  exclusively  scien- 
tific education  is  at  least  as  effectual 
as  an  exclusively  literary  education.’ 
And  a certain  President  of  the  Section 
for  Mechanical  Science  in  the  British 
Association  is,  in  Scripture  phrase, 
‘very  bold,’  and  declares  that  if  a 
man,  in  his  mental  training,  ‘ has  sub- 


/i  LITERA  TURE  AND  SCIENCE  99 

stituted  literature  and  history  for 
natural  science,  he  has  chosen  the 
less  useful  alternative.’  But  whether 
we  go  these  lengths  or  not,  we  must 
all  admit  that  in  natural  science  the 
habit  gained  of  dealing  with  facts  is 
a most  valuable  discipline,  and  that 
every  one  should  have  some  experi- 
ence of  it. 

More  than  this,  however,  is  de- 
manded by  the  reformers.  It  is  pro- 
posed to  make  the  training  in  natural 
science  the  main  part  of  education, 
for  the  great  majority  of  mankind  at 
any  rate.  And  here,  I confess,  I part 
company  with  the  friends  of  physical 
science,  with  whom  up  to  this  point 
I have  been  agreeing.  In  differing 
from  them,  however,  I wish  to  pro- 


ioo  LITERA  TURK  AND  SCIENCE  n 

ceed  with  the  utmost  caution  and 
diffidence.  The  smallness  of  my  own 
acquaintance  with  the  disciplines  of 
natural  science  is  ever  before  my 
mind,  and  I am  fearful  of  doing  these 
disciplines  an  injustice.  The  ability 
and  pugnacity  of  the  partisans  of 
natural  science  make  them  formid- 
able persons  to  contradict.  The  tone 
of  tentative  inquiry,  which  befits  a 
being  of  dim  faculties  and  bounded 
knowledge,  is  the  tone  I would  wish 
to  take  and  not  to  depart  from.  At 
present  it  seems  to  me,  that  those 
who  are  for  giving  to  natural  know- 
ledge, as  they  call  it,  the  chief  place 
in  the  education  of  the  majority  of 
mankind,  leave  one  important  thing 
out  of  their  account : the  constitution 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  ioi 


of  human  nature.  But  I put  this 
forward  on  the  strength  of  some  facts 
not  at  all  recondite,  very  far  from  it  ; 
facts  capable  of  being  stated  in  the 
simplest  possible  fashion,  and  to 
which,  if  I so  state  them,  the  man  of 
science  will,  I am  sure,  be  willing  to 
allow  their  due  weight. 

Deny  the  facts  altogether,  I think, 
he  hardly  can.  He  can  hardly  deny, 
that  when  we  set  ourselves  to  enume- 
rate the  powers  which  go  to  the  build- 
ing up  of  human  life,  and  say  that 
they  are  the  power  of  conduct,  the 
power  of  intellect  and  knowledge,  the 
power  of  beauty,  and  the  power  of 
social  life  and  manners, — he  can  hardly 
deny  that  this  scheme,  though  drawn 
in  rough  and  plain  lines  enough,  and 


102  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

not  pretending  to  scientific  exactness, 
does  yet  give  a fairly  true  representa- 
tion of  the  matter.  Human  nature  is 
built  up  by  these  powers ; we  have 
the  need  for  them  all.  When  we 
have  rightly  met  and  adjusted  the 
claims  of  them  all,  we  shall  then  be  in 
a fair  way  for  getting  soberness  and 
righteousness,  with  wisdom.  This  is 
evident  enough,  and  the  friends  of 
physical  science  would  admit  it. 

But  perhaps  they  may  not  have 
sufficiently  observed  another  thing : 
namely,  that  the  several  powers  just 
mentioned  are  not  isolated,  but  there 
is,  in  the  generality  of  mankind,  a 
perpetual  tendency  to  relate  them  one 
to  another  in  divers  ways.  With  one 
such  way  of  relating  them  I am  parti- 


ir  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  103 

cularly  concerned  now.  Following 
our  instinct  for  intellect  and  know- 
ledge, we  acquire  pieces  of  know- 
ledge ; and  presently,  in  the  generality 
of  men,  there  arises  the  desire  to 
relate  these  pieces  of  knowledge  to 
our  sense  for  conduct,  to  our  sense 
for  beauty, — and  there  is  weariness 
and  dissatisfaction  if  the  desire  is 
baulked.  Now  in  this  desire  lies,  I 
think,  the  strength  of  that  hold  which 
letters  have  upon  us. 

All  knowledge  is,  as  I said  just 
now,  interesting ; and  even  items  of 
knowledge  which  from  the  nature  of 
the  case  cannot  well  be  related,  but 
must  stand  isolated  in  our  thoughts, 
have  their  interest.  Even  lists  of 
exceptions  have  their  interest.  If  we 


104  LITERA  TURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

are  studying  Greek  accents,  it  is  inter- 
esting to  know  that  pais  and  pas , and 
some  other  monosyllables  of  the  same 
form  of  declension,  do  not  take  the 
circumflex  upon  the  last  syllable  of 
the  genitive  plural,  but  vary,  in  this 
respect,  from  the  common  rule.  If  we 
are  studying  physiology,  it  is  interest- 
ing to  know  that  the  pulmonary  artery 
carries  dark  blood  and  the  pulmonary 
vein  carries  bright  blood,  departing  in 
this  respect  from  the  common  rule  for 
the  division  of  labour  between  the 
veins  and  the  arteries.  But  every 
one  knows  how  we  seek  naturally  to 
combine  the  pieces  of  our  knowledge 
together,  to  bring  them  under  general 
rules,  to  relate  them  to  principles ; 
and  how  unsatisfactory  and  tiresome  it 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  105 

would  be  to  go  on  for  ever  learning  lists 
of  exceptions,  or  accumulating  items 
of  fact  which  must  stand  isolated. 

Well,  that  same  need  of  relating 
our  knowledge,  which  operates  here 
within  the  sphere  of  our  knowledge 
itself,  we  shall  find  operating,  also, 
outside  that  sphere.  We  experience, 
as  we  go  on  learning  and  knowing, — 
the  vast  majority  of  us  experience, — 
the  need  of  relating  what  we  have 
learnt  and  known  to  the  sense  which 
we  have  in  us  for  conduct,  to  the  sense 
which  we  have  in  us  for  beauty. 

A certain  Greek  prophetess  of 
Mantineia  in  Arcadia,  Diotima  by 
name,  once  explained  to  the  philo- 
sopher Socrates  that  love,  and  impulse, 
and  bent  of  all  kinds,  is,  in  fact, 


:o6  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

nothing  else  but  the  desire  in  men 
that  good  should  for  ever  be  present  to 
them.  This  desire  for  good,  Diotima 
assured  Socrates,  is  our  fundamental 
desire,  of  which  fundamental  desire 
every  impulse  in  us  is  only  some 
one  particular  form.  And  therefore 
this  fundamental  desire  it  is,  I suppose, 
— this  desire  in  men  that  good  should 
be  for  ever  present  to  them, — which 
acts  in  us  when  we  feel  the  impulse 
for  relating  our  knowledge  to  our 
sense  for  conduct  and  to  our  sense 
for  beauty.  At  any  rate,  with  men  in 
general  the  instinct  exists.  Such  is 
human  nature.  And  the  instinct,  it 
will  be  admitted,  is  innocent,  and 
human  nature  is  preserved  by  our 
following  the  lead  of  its  innocent  in- 


n LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  107 

stincts.  Therefore,  in  seeking  to 
gratify  this  instinct  in  question,  we 
are  following  the  instinct  of  self-pre- 
servation in  humanity. 

But,  no  doubt,  some  kinds  of  know- 
ledge cannot  be  made  to  directly  serve 
the  instinct  in  question,  cannot  be 
directly  related  to  the  sense  for 
beauty,  to  the  sense  for  conduct. 
These  are  instrument- knowledges ; 
they  lead  on  to  other  knowledges, 
which  can.  A man  who  passes  his 
life  in  instrument -knowledges  is  a 
specialist.  They  may  be  invaluable 
as  instruments  to  something  beyond, 
for  those  who  have  the  gift  thus  to 
employ  them  ; and  they  may  be  dis- 
ciplines in  themselves  wherein  it  is 
useful  for  every  one  to  have  some 


108  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

schooling.  But  it  is  inconceivable 
that  the  generality  of  men  should  pass 
all  their  mental  life  with  Greek  accents 
or  with  formal  logic.  My  friend  Pro- 
fessor Sylvester,  who  is  one  of  the 
first  mathematicians  in  the  world, 
holds  transcendental  doctrines  as  to 
the  virtue  of  mathematics,  but  those 
doctrines  are  not  for  common  men. 
In  the  very  Senate  House  and  heart 
of  our  English  Cambridge  I once  ven- 
tured, though  not  without  an  apology 
for  my  profaneness,  to  hazard  the 
opinion  that  for  the  majority  of  man- 
kind a little  of  mathematics,  even, 
goes  a long  way.  Of  course  this  is 
quite  consistent  with  their  being  of 
immense  importance  as  an  instrument 
to  something  else  ; but  it  is  the  few 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  109 

who  have  the  aptitude  for  thus  using 
them,  not  the  bulk  of  mankind. 

The  natural  sciences  do  not,  how- 
ever, stand  on  the  same  footing  with 
these  instrument- knowledges.  Ex- 
perience shows  us  that  the  generality 
of  men  will  find  more  interest  in  learn- 
ing that,  when  a taper  burns,  the  wax 
is  converted  into  carbonic  acid  and 
water,  or  in  learning  the  explanation 
of  the  phenomenon  of  dew,  or  in 
learning  how  the  circulation  of  the 
blood  is  carried  on,  than  they  find  in 
learning  that  the  genitive  plural  of 
pais  and  pas  does  not  take  the  circum- 
flex on  the  termination.  And  one 
piece  of  natural  knowledge  is  added 
to  another,  and  others  are  added  to 
that,  and  at  last  we  come  to  proposi- 


no  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  u 

tions  so  interesting  as  Mr.  Darwin’s 
famous  proposition  that  ‘ our  ancestor 
was  a hairy  quadruped  furnished  with 
a tail  and  pointed  ears,  probably  ar- 
boreal in  his  habits.’  Or  we  come  to 
propositions  of  such  reach  and  magni- 
tude as  those  which  Professor  Huxley 
delivers,  when  he  says  that  the  notions 
of  our  forefathers  about  the  beginning 
and  the  end  of  the  world  were  all 
wrong,  and  that  nature  is  the  expres- 
sion of  a definite  order  with  which 
nothing  interferes. 

Interesting,  indeed,  these  results  of 
science  are,  important  they  are,  and 
we  should  all  of  us  be  acquainted  with 
them.  But  what  I now  wish  you  to 
mark  is,  that  we  are  still,  when  they 
are  propounded  to  us  and  we  receive 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  in 

them,  we  are  still  in  the  sphere  of 
intellect  and  knowledge.  And  for  the 
generality  of  men  there  will  be  found, 
I say,  to  arise,  when  they  have  duly 
taken  in  the  proposition  that  their 
ancestor  was  ‘ a hairy  quadruped  fur- 
nished with  a tail  and  pointed  ears, 
probably  arboreal  in  his  habits,’  there 
will  be  found  to  arise  an  invincible 
desire  to  relate  this  proposition  to  the 
sense  in  us  for  conduct,  and  to  the 
sense  in  us  for  beauty.  But  this  the 
men  of  science  will  not  do  for  us,  and 
will  hardly  even  profess  to  do.  They 
will  give  us  other  pieces  of  knowledge, 
other  facts,  about  other  animals  and 
their  ancestors,  or  about  plants,  or 
about  stones,  or  about  stars  ; and  they 
may  finally  bring  us  to  those  great 


1 12  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  u 

‘general  conceptions  of  the  universe, 
which  are  forced  upon  us  all,’  says 
Professor  Huxley,  ‘ by  the  progress 
of  physical  science.’  But  still  it  will 
be  knowledge  only  which  they  give 
us ; knowledge  not  put  for  us  into 
relation  with  our  sense  for  conduct, 
our  sense  for  beauty,  and  touched 
with  emotion  by  being  so  put ; not 
thus  put  for  us,  and  therefore,  to  the 
majority  of  mankind,  after  a certain 
while,  unsatisfying,  wearying. 

Not  to  the  born  naturalist,  I admit. 
But  what  do  we  mean  by  a born  na- 
turalist ? We  mean  a man  in  whom 
the  zeal  for  observing  nature  is  so  un- 
commonly strong  and  eminent,  that  it 
marks  him  off  from  the  bulk  of  man- 
kind. Such  a man  will  pass  his  life 


LI  TER  A TURE  A ND  SCIENCE  1 1 3 


happily  in  collecting  natural  know- 
ledge and  reasoning  upon  it,  and  will 
ask  for  nothing,  or  hardly  anything, 
more.  I have  heard  it  said  that  the 
sagacious  and  admirable  naturalist 
whom  we  lost  not  very  long  ago,  Mr. 
Darwin,  once  owned  to  a friend  that 
for  his  part  he  did  not  experience  the 
necessity  for  two  things  which  most 
men  find  so  necessary  to  them, — re- 
ligion and  poetry ; science  and  the 
domestic  affections,  he  thought,  were 
enough.  To  a born  naturalist,  I can 
well  understand  that  this  should  seem 
so.  So  absorbing  is  his  occupation 
with  nature,  so  strong  his  love  for  his 
occupation,  that  he  goes  on  acquiring 
natural  knowledge  and  reasoning 
upon  it,  and  has  little  time  or  in- 
1 


1 14  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

clination  for  thinking  about  getting 
it  related  to  the  desire  in  man  for 
conduct,  the  desire  in  man  for  beauty. 
He  relates  it  to  them  for  himself  as 
he  goes  along,  so  far  as  he  feels  the 
need  ; and  he  draws  from  the  domestic 
affections  all  the  additional  solace 
necessary.  But  then  Darwins  are  ex- 
tremely rare.  Another  great  and  ad- 
mirable master  of  natural  knowledge, 
Faraday,  was  a Sandemanian.  That 
is  to  say,  he  related  his  knowledge 
to  his  instinct  for  conduct  and  to  his 
instinct  for  beauty,  by  the  aid  of  that 
respectable  Scottish  sectary,  Robert 
Sandeman.  And  so  strong,  in 
general,  is  the  demand  of  religion  - 
and  poetry  to  have  their  share  in  a> 
man,  to  associate  themselves  with  his 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  115 

knowing,  and  to  relieve  and  rejoice  it, 
that,  probably,  for  one  man  amongst 
us  with  the  disposition  to  do  as 
Darwin  did  in  this  respect,  there  are 
at  least  fifty  with  the  disposition  to 
do  as  Faraday. 

Education  lays  hold  upon  us,  in 
fact,  by  satisfying  this  demand.  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  holds  up  to  scorn 
mediaeval  education,  with  its  neglect 
of  the  knowledge  of  nature,  its 
poverty  even  of  literary  studies,  its 
formal  logic  devoted  to  ‘ showing 
how  and  why  that  which  the  Church 
said  was  true  must  be  true.’  But  the 
great  mediaeval  Universities  were  not 
brought  into  being,  we  may  be  sure, 
by  the  zeal  for  giving  a jejune  and 
contemptible  education.  Kings  have 


1 16  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

been  their  nursing  fathers,  and  queens 
have  been  their  nursing  mothers,  but 
not  for  this.  The  mediaeval  Universi- 
ties came  into  being,  because  the  sup- 
posed knowledge,  delivered  by  Scrip- 
ture and  the  Church,  so  deeply  en- 
gaged men’s  hearts,  by  so  simply, 
easily,  and  powerfully  relating  itself 
to  their  desire  for  conduct,  their 
desire  for  beauty.  All  other  know- 
ledge was  dominated  by  this  supposed 
knowledge  and  was  subordinated  to 
it,  because  of  the  surpassing  strength 
of  the  hold  which  it  gained  upon  the 
affections  of  men,  by  allying  itself 
profoundly  with  their  sense  for  con- 
duct, their  sense  for  beauty. 

But  now,  says  Professor  Huxley, 
conceptions  of  the  universe  fatal  to 


ii  LITER  A TURE  AND  SCIENCE  1 1 7 

the  notions  held  by  our  forefathers 
have  been  forced  upon  us  by  physical 
science.  Grant  to  him  that  they  are 
thus  fatal,  that  the  new  conceptions 
must  and  will  soon  become  current 
everywhere,  and  that  every  one  will 
finally  perceive  them  to  be  fatal  to 
the  beliefs  of  our  forefathers.  The 
need  of  humane  letters,  as  they  are 
truly  called,  because  they  serve  the 
paramount  desire  in  men  that  good 
should  be  for  ever  present  to  them, 
— the  need  of  humane  letters,  to 
establish  a relation  between  the  new 
conceptions,  and  our  instinct  for 
beauty,  our  instinct  for  conduct,  is 
only  the  more  visible.  The  Middle 
Age  could  do  without  humane  letters, 
as  it  could  do  without  the  study  of 


1 1 8 LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

nature,  because  its  supposed  know- 
ledge was  made  to  engage  its  emo- 
tions so  powerfully.  Grant  that  the 
supposed  knowledge  disappears,  its 
power  of  being  made  to  engage  the 
emotions  will  of  course  disappear 
along  with  it, — but  the  emotions  them- 
selves, and  their  claim  to  be  engaged 
and  satisfied,  will  remain.  Now  if 
we  find  by  experience  that  humane 
letters  have  an  undeniable  power  of 
engaging  the  emotions,  the  import- 
ance of  humane  letters  in  a mans 
training  becomes  not  less,  but  greater, 
in  proportion  to  the  success  of  modern 
science  in  extirpating  what  it  calls 
' mediaeval  thinking.’ 

Have  humane  letters,  then,  have 
poetry  and  eloquence,  the  power  here 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  119 


attributed  to  them  of  engaging  the 
emotions,  and  do  they  exercise  it  ? 
And  if  they  have  it  and  exercise  it, 
how  do  they  exercise  it,  so  as  to 
exert  an  influence  upon  man’s  sense 
for  conduct,  his  sense  for  beauty  ? 
Finally,  even  if  they  both  can  and  do 
exert  an  influence  upon  the  senses 
in  question,  how  are  they  to  relate 
to  them  the  results, — the  modern 
results, — of  natural  science  ? All 
these  questions  may  be  asked. 
First,  have  poetry  and  eloquence 
the  power  of  calling  out  the  emo- 
tions ? The  appeal  is  to  experience. 
Experience  shows  that  for  the  vast 
majority  of  men,  for  mankind  in 
general,  they  have  the  power.  Next, 
do  they  exercise  it  ? They  do.  But 


120  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

then,  how  do  they  exercise  it  so  as 
to  affect  man’s  sense  for  conduct,  his 
sense  for  beauty  ? And  this  is  per- 
haps a case  for  applying  the  Preacher’s 
words  : ‘ Though  a man  labour  to 

seek  it  out,  yet  he  shall  not  find  it ; 
yea,  farther,  though  a wise  man  think 
to  know  it,  yet  shall  he  not  be  able 
to  find  it.’1  Why  should  it  be  one 
thing,  in  its  effect  upon  the  emotions, 
to  say,  ‘ Patience  is  a virtue,’  and 
quite  another  thing,  in  its  effect  upon 
the  emotions,  to  say  with  Homer, 

tA^tov  yap  Motpai  Ov/jlov  Oecrav  dvOpioiroio'LV — 2 

‘ for  an  enduring  heart  have  the 
destinies  appointed  to  the  children 
of  men  ’ ? Why  should  it  be  one 


1 Ecclesiastes , viii.  17. 


2 Iliad, , xxiv.  49. 


LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  121 


thing,  in  its  effect  upon  the  emotions, 
to  say  with  the  philosopher  Spinoza, 
Felicitas  in  eo  consistit  quod  homo 
suum  esse  conservare  potest — ‘ Man’s 
happiness  consists  in  his  being  able 
to  preserve  his  own  essence,’  and 
quite  another  thing,  in  its  effect  upon 
the  emotions,  to  say  with  the  Gospel, 

‘ What  is  a man  advantaged,  if  he 
gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  him- 
self, forfeit  himself?’  How  does  this 
difference  of  effect  arise  ? I cannot 
tell,  and  I am  not  much  concerned  to 
know  ; the  important  thing  is  that  it 
does  arise,  and  that  we  can  profit  by 
it.  But  how,  finally,  are  poetry  and 
eloquence  to  exercise  the  power  of 
relating  the  modern  results  of  natural 
science  to  man’s  instinct  for  conduct, 


122  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  11 

his  instinct  for  beauty  ? And  here 
again  I answer  that  I do  not  know 
how  they  will  exercise  it,  but  that 
they  can  and  will  exercise  it  I am 
sure.  I do  not  mean  that  modern 
philosophical  poets  and  modern  philo- 
sophical moralists  are  to  come  and 
relate  for  us,  in  express  terms,  the 
results  of  modern  scientific  research 
to  our  instinct  for  conduct,  our  in- 
stinct for  beauty.  But  I mean  that 
we  shall  find,  as  a matter  of  experi- 
ence, if  we  know  the  best  that  has 
been  thought  and  uttered  in  the 
world,  we  shall  find  that  the  art  and 
poetry  and  eloquence  of  men  who 
lived,  perhaps,  long  ago,  who  had 
the  most  limited  natural  knowledge, 
who  had  the  most  erroneous  concep- 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  123 

tions  about  many  important  matters, 
we  shall  find  that  this  art,  and  poetry, 
and  eloquence,  have  in  fact  not  only 
the  power  of  refreshing  and  delight- 
ing us,  they  have  also  the  power, — 
such  is  the  strength  and  worth,  in 
essentials,  of  their  authors’  criticism 
of  life, — they  have  a fortifying,  and 
elevating,  and  quickening,  and  sug- 
gestive power,  capable  of  wonderfully 
helping  us  to  relate  the  results  of 
modern  science  to  our  need  for  con- 
duct, our  need  for  beauty.  Homer’s 
conceptions  of  the  physical  universe 
were,  I imagine,  grotesque  ; but 
really,  under  the  shock  of  hearing 
from  modern  science  that  ‘ the  world 
is  not  subordinated  to  man’s  use,  and 
that  man  is  not  the  cynosure  of  things 


124  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

terrestrial,’  I could,  for  my  own  part, 
desire  no  better  comfort  than  Homers 
line  which  I quoted  just  now, 

rXrjTov  yap  Moi/acu  Ovpiov  Oecrav  dvOpdtiroLcriv — 

‘ for  an  enduring  heart  have  the  des- 
tinies appointed  to  the  children  of 
men  ’ 1 

And  the  more  that  men’s  minds  are 
cleared,  the  more  that  the  results  of 
science  are  frankly  accepted,  the  more 
that  poetry  and  eloquence  come  to  be 
received  and  studied  as  what  in  truth 
they  really  are, — the  criticism  of  life 
by  gifted  men,  alive  and  active  with 
extraordinary  power  at  an  unusual 
number  of  points  ; — so  much  the  more 
will  the  value  of  humane  letters,  and 
of  art  also,  which  is  an  utterance  hav- 
ing a like  kind  of  power  with  theirs, 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  125 

be  felt  and  acknowledged,  and  their 
place  in  education  be  secured. 

Let  us  therefore,  all  of  us,  avoid 
indeed  as  much  as  possible  any  in- 
vidious comparison  between  the  merits 
of  humane  letters,  as  means  of  educa- 
tion, and  the  merits  of  the  natural 
sciences.  But  when  some  President 
of  a Section  for  Mechanical  Science 
insists  on  making  the  comparison,  and 
tells  us  that  ‘he  who  in  his  training 
has  substituted  literature  and  history 
for  natural  science  has  chosen  the  less 
useful  alternative/  let  us  make  answer 
to  him  that  the  student  of  humane 
letters  only,  will,  at  least,  know  also 
the  great  general  conceptions  brought 
in  by  modern  physical  science ; for 
science,  as  Professor  Huxley  says, 


126  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  n 

forces  them  upon  us  all.  But  the 
student  of  the  natural  sciences  only, 
will,  by  our  very  hypothesis,  know 
nothing  of  humane  letters ; not  to 
mention  that  in  setting  himself  to 
be  perpetually  accumulating  natural 
knowledge,  he  sets  himself  to  do  what 
only  specialists  have  in  general  the 
gift  for  doing  genially.  And  so  he 
will  probably  be  unsatisfied,  or  at  any 
rate  incomplete,  and  even  more  in- 
complete than  the  student  of  humane 
letters  only. 

I once  mentioned  in  a school-report, 
how  a young  man  in  one  of  our  English 
training  colleges  having  to  paraphrase 
the  passage  in  Macbeth  beginning, 

‘ Can’st  thou  not  minister  to  a mind  diseased  ? ’ 
turned  this  line  into,  ‘ Can  you  not  wait 


ii  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  127 

upon  the  lunatic  ? ’ And  I remarked 
what  a curious  state  of  things  it  would 
be,  if  every  pupil  of  our  national  schools 
knew,  let  us  say,  that  the  moon  is  two 
thousand  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles 
in  diameter,  and  thought  at  the  same 
time  that  a good  paraphrase  for 
‘ Can’st  thou  not  minister  to  a mind  diseased  ? ’ 
was,  ‘ Can  you  not  wait  upon  the 
lunatic?’  If  one  is  driven  to  choose, 
I think  I would  rather  have  a young 
person  ignorant  about  the  moon’s 
diameter,  but  aware  that  ‘ Can  you  not 
wait  upon  the  lunatic  ? ’ is  bad,  than 
a young  person  whose  education  had 
been  such  as  to  manage  things  the 
other  way. 

Or  to  go  higher  than  the  pupils  of 
our  national  schools.  I have  in  my 


128  LITERATURE  AND  SCIENCE  11 

mind’s  eye  a member  of  our  British 
Parliament  who  comes  to  travel  here 
in  America,  who  afterwards  relates 
his  travels,  and  who  shows  a really 
masterly  knowledge  of  the  geology  of 
this  great  country  and  of  its  mining 
capabilities,  but  who  ends  by  gravely 
suggesting  that  the  United  States 
should  borrow  a prince  from  our 
Royal  Family,  and  should  make  him 
their  king,  and  should  create  a House 
of  Lords  of  great  landed  proprietors 
after  the  pattern  of  ours  ; and  then 
America,  he  thinks,  would  have  her 
future  happily  and  perfectly  secured. 
Surely,  in  this  case,  the  President  of 
the  Section  for  Mechanical  Science 
would  himself  hardly  say  that  our 
member  of  Parliament,  by  concentrat- 


SCIENCE  AND  LITERATURE  129 


in g himself  upon  geology  and  miner- 
alogy, and  so  on,  and  not  attending 
to  literature  and  history,  had  ‘ chosen 
the  more  useful  alternative.’ 

If  then  there  is  to  be  separation 
and  option  between  humane  letters 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  natural 
sciences  on  the  other,  the  great 
majority  of  mankind,  all  who  have 
not  exceptional  and  overpowering 
aptitudes  for  the  study  of  nature, 
would  do  well,  I cannot  but  think,  to 
choose  to  be  educated  in  humane 
letters  rather  than  in  the  natural 
sciences.  Letters  will  call  out  their 
being  at  more  points,  will  make  them 
live  more. 

I said  that  before  I ended  I would 
just  touch  on  the  question  of  classical 

K 


130  SCIENCE  AND  LITERATURE  n 

education,  and  I will  keep  my  word. 
Even  if  literature  is  to  retain  a large 
place  in  our  education,  yet  Latin  and 
Greek,  say  the  friends  of  progress, 
will  certainly  have  to  go.  Greek  is 
the  grand  offender  in  the  eyes  of 
these  gentlemen.  The  attackers  of 
the  established  course  of  study  think 
that  against  Greek,  at  any  rate,  they 
have  irresistible  arguments.  Litera- 
ture may  perhaps  be  needed  in  educa- 
tion, they  say ; but  why  on  earth 
should  it  be  Greek  literature  ? Why 
not  French  or  German?  Nay,  ‘has 
not  an  Englishman  models  in  his  own 
literature  of  every  kind  of  excellence  ? 
As  before,  it  is  not  on  any  weak  plead- 
ings of  my  own  that  I rely  for  con- 
vincing the  gainsayers  ; it  is  on  the 


ii  SCIENCE  AND  LITERATURE  13 1 

constitution  of  human  nature  itself, 
and  on  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
in  humanity.  The  .instinct  for  beauty 
is  set  in  human  nature,  as  surely  as  the 
instinct  for  knowledge  is  set  there,  or 
the  instinct  for  conduct.  If  the  in- 
stinct for  beauty  is  served  by  Greek 
literature  and  art  as  it  is  served  by 
no  other  literature  and  art,  we  may 
trust  to  the  instinct  of  self-preservation 
in  humanity  for  keeping  Greek  as  part 
of  our  culture.  We  may  trust  to  it 
for  even  making  the  study  of  Greek 
more  prevalent  than  it  is  now.  Greek 
will  come,  I hope,  some  day  to  be 
studied  more  rationally  than  at  pre- 
sent ; but  it  will  be  increasingly 
studied  as  men  increasingly  feel  the 
need  in  them  for  beauty,  and  how 


132  SCIENCE  AND  LITERATURE  n 

powerfully  Greek  art  and  Greek  litera- 
ture can  serve  this  need.  Women 
will  again  study  Greek,  as  Lady  Jane 
Grey  did  ; I believe  that  in  that  chain 
of  forts,  with  which  the  fair  host  of 
the  Amazons  are  now  engirdling  our 
English  universities,  I find  that  here 
in  America,  in  colleges  like  Smith 
College  in  Massachusetts,  and  Vassar 
College  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
and  in  the  happy  families  of  the 
mixed  universities  out  West,  they  are 
studying  it  already. 

Defuit  una  mihi  symmetric x prisca, 
— ‘ The  antique  symmetry  was  the  one 
thing  wanting  to  me,’  said  Leonardo  da 
Vinci;  and  he  was  an  Italian.  I will 
not  presume  to  speak  for  the  Ameri- 
cans, but  I am  sure  that,  in  the  Eng- 


ii  SCIENCE  AND  LITERATURE  133 

lishman,  the  want  of  this  admirable 
symmetry  of  the  Greeks  is  a thousand 
times  more  great  and  crying  than  in 
any  Italian.  The  results  of  the  want 
show  themselves  most  glaringly,  per- 
haps, in  our  architecture,  but  they  show 
themselves,  also,  in  all  our  art.  Fit 
details  strictly  combined , in  view  of  a 
large  general  result  nobly  conceived ; 
that  is  just  the  beautiful  symmetria 
prisca  of  the  Greeks,  and  it  is  just  where 
we  English  fail,  where  all  our  art  fails. 
Striking  ideas  we  have,  and  well- 
executed  details  we  have ; but  that 
high  symmetry  which,  with  satisfying 
and  delightful  effect,  combines  them, 
we  seldom  or  never  have.  The  glori- 
ous beauty  of  the  Acropolis  at  Athens 
did  not  come  from  single  fine  things 


i34  SCIENCE  AND  LITERA  TURE  u 

stuck  about  on  that  hill,  a statue  here, 
a gateway  there  ; — no,  it  arose  from 
all  things  being  perfectly  combined 
for  a supreme  total  effect.  What 
must  not  an  Englishman  feel  about 
our  deficiencies  in  this  respect,  as  the 
sense  for  beauty,  whereof  this  sym- 
metry is  an  essential  element,  awakens 
and  strengthens  within  him  ! what  will 
not  one  day  be  his  respect  and  desire 
for  Greece  and  its  symmetria  prisca, 
when  the  scales  drop  from  his  eyes  as 
he  walks  the  London  streets,  and  he 
sees  such  a lesson  in  meanness  as  the 
Strand,  for  instance,  in  its  true  de- 
formity ! But  here  we  are  coming  to 
our  friend  Mr.  Ruskin’s  province,  and 
I will  not  intrude  upon  it,  for  he  is  its 
very  sufficient  guardian. 


ii  SCIENCE  AND  LITERATURE  135 

And  so  we  at  last  find,  it  seems,  we 
find  flowing  in  favour  of  the  humani- 
ties the  natural  and  necessary  stream 
of  things,  which  seemed  against  them 
when  we  started.  The  ‘ hairy  quad- 
ruped furnished  with  a tail  and  pointed 
ears,  probably  arboreal  in  his  habits,’ 
this  good  fellow  carried  hidden  in  his 
nature,  apparently,  something  destined 
to  develop  into  a necessity  for  humane 
letters.  Nay,  more;  we  seem  finally 
to  be  even  led  to  the  further  conclusion 
that  our  hairy  ancestor  carried  in  his 
nature,  also,  a necessity  for  Greek. 

And  therefore,  to  say  the  truth, 
I cannot  really  think  that  humane 
letters  are  in  much  actual  danger 
of  being  thrust  out  from  their  lead- 
ing place  in  education,  in  spite  of 


136  SCIENCE  AND  LITERATURE  n 

the  array  of  authorities  against  them 
at  this  moment.  So  long  as  human 
nature  is  what  it  is,  their  attractions 
will  remain  irresistible.  As  with 
Greek,  so  with  letters  generally  : they 
will  some  day  come,  we  may  hope, 
to  be  studied  more  rationally,  but  they 
will  not  lose  their  place.  What  will 
happen  will  rather  be  that  there  will 
be  crowded  into  education  other  mat- 
ters besides,  far  too  many  ; there  will 
be,  perhaps,  a period  of  unsettlement 
and  confusion  and  false  tendency ; 
but  letters  will  not  in  the  end  lose 
their  leading  place.  If  they  lose  it 
for  a time,  they  will  get  it  back  again. 
We  shall  be  brought  back  to  them  by 
our  wants  and  aspirations.  And  a 
poor  humanist  may  possess  his  soul 


ii  SCIENCE  AND  LITERATURE  137 

iii  patience,  neither  strive  nor  cry, 
admit  the  energy  and  brilliancy  of 
the  partisans  of  physical  science,  and 
their  present  favour  with  the  public, 
to  be  far  greater  than  his  own,  and 
still  have  a happy  faith  that  the  nature 
of  things  works  silently  on  behalf  of 
the  studies  which  he  loves,  and  that, 
while  we  shall  all  have  to  acquaint  our- 
selves with  the  great  results  reached 
by  modern  science,  and  to  give  our- 
selves as  much  training  in  its  disci- 
plines as  we  can  conveniently  carry, 
yet  the  majority  of  men  will  always 
require  humane  letters  ; and  so  much 
the  more,  as  they  have  the  more  and 
the  greater  results  of  science  to  relate 
to  the  need  in  man  for  conduct,  and 
to  the  need  in  him  for  beauty. 


EMERSON 


Forty  years  ago,  when  I was  an 
undergraduate  at  Oxford,  voices  were 
in  the  air  there  which  haunt  my 
memory  still.  Happy  the  man  who 
in  that  susceptible  season  of  youth 
hears  such  voices ! they  are  a posses- 
sion to  him  for  ever.  No  such  voices 
as  those  which  we  heard  in  our  youth 
at  Oxford  are  sounding  there  now. 
Oxford  has  more  criticism  now,  more 
knowledge,  more  light  ; but  such 
voices  as  those  of  our  youth  it  has 


Ill 


EMERSON 


139 


no  longer.  The  name  of  Cardinal 
Newman  is  a great  name  to  the 
imagination  still ; his  genius  and  his 
style  are  still  things  of  power.  But 
he  is  over  eighty  years  old  ; he  is  in 
the  Oratory  at  Birmingham  ; he  has 
adopted,  for  the  doubts  and  difficulties 
which  beset  men’s  minds  to-day,  a 
solution  which,  to  speak  frankly,  is 
impossible.  Forty  years  ago  he  was 
in  the  very  prime  of  life ; he  was 
close  at  hand  to  us  at  Oxford  ; he 
was  preaching  in  St.  Mary’s  pulpit 
every  Sunday ; he  seemed  about  to 
transform  and  to  renew  what  was  for 
us  the  most  national  and  natural  insti- 
tution in  the  world,  the  Church  of 
England.  Who  could  resist  the  charm 
of  that  spiritual  apparition,  gliding  in 


140 


EMERSON 


hi 


the  dim  afternoon  light  through  the 
aisles  of  St.  Mary’s,  rising  into  the 
pulpit,  and  then,  in  the  most  entranc- 
ing of  voices,  breaking  the  silence 
with  words  and  thoughts  which  were 
a religious  music, — subtle,  sweet, 
mournful  ? I seem  to  hear  him  still, 
saying  : ‘ After  the  fever  of  life,  after 
wearinesses  and  sicknesses,  fightings 
and  despondings,  languor  and  fretful- 
ness, struggling  and  succeeding  ; after 
all  the  changes  and  chances  of  this 
troubled,  unhealthy  state, — at  length 
comes  death,  at  length  the  white 
throne  of  God,  at  length  the  beatific 
vision.’  Or,  if  we  followed  him  back 
to  his  seclusion  at  Littlemore,  that 
dreary  village  by  the  London  road, 
and  to  the  house  of  retreat  and  the 


Ill 


EMERSON 


141 

church  which  he  built  there, — a mean 
house  such  as  Paul  might  have  lived 
in  when  he  was  tent-making  at  Ephe- 
sus, a church  plain  and  thinly  sown 
with  worshippers, — who  could  resist 
him  there  either,  welcoming  back  to 
the  severe  joys  of  church-fellowship, 
and  of  daily  worship  and  prayer,  the 
firstlings  of  a generation  which  had 
well-nigh  forgotten  them?  Again  1 
seem  to  hear  him  : ‘ The  season  is  chill 
and  dark,  and  the  breath  of  the  morn- 
ing is  damp,  and  worshippers  are  few  ; 
but  all  this  befits  those  who  are  by  their 
profession  penitents  and  mourners, 
watchers  and  pilgrims.  More  dear  to 
them  that  loneliness,  more  cheerful 
that  severity,  and  more  bright  that 
gloom,  than  all  those  aids  and  ap- 


142 


EMERSON 


in 


pliances  of  luxury  by  which  men 
nowadays  attempt  to  make  prayer 
less  disagreeable  to  them.  True 
faith  does  not  covet  comforts ; they 
who  realise  that  awful  day,  when 
they  shall  see  Him  face  to  face 
whose  eyes  are  as  a flame  of  fire, 
will  as  little  bargain  to  pray  plea- 
santly now  as  they  will  think  of  doing 
so  then.’ 

Somewhere  or  other  I have  spoken 
of  those  ‘ last  enchantments  of  the 
Middle  Age ' wdiich  Oxford  sheds 
around  us,  and  here  they  were ! But 
there  were  other  voices  sounding  in 
our  ear  besides  Newman’s.  There 
was  the  puissant  voice  of  Carlyle  ; so 
sorely  strained,  over-used,  and  mis- 
used since,  but  then  fresh,  compara- 


Ill 


EMERSON 


M3 


tively  sound,  and  reaching  our  hearts 
with  true,  pathetic  eloquence.  Who 
can  forget  the  emotion  of  receiving  in 
its  first  freshness  such  a sentence  as 
that  sentence  of  Carlyle  upon  Edward 
Irving,  then  just  dead  : ‘ Scotland  sent 
him  forth  a herculean  man  ; our  mad 
Babylon  wore  and  wasted  him  with 
all  her  engines,  — and  it  took  her 
twelve  years  ! ’ A greater  voice  still, 
— the  greatest  voice  of  the  century, — 
came  to  us  in  those  youthful  years 
through  Carlyle  : the  voice  of  Goethe. 
To  this  day, — such  is  the  force  of 
youthful  associations, — I read  the 
Wilhelm  Meister  with  more  pleasure 
in  Carlyle’s  translation  than  in  the 
original.  The  large,  liberal  view  of 
human  life  in  Wilhelm  Meister , how 


144 


EMERSON 


hi 


novel  it  was  to  the  Englishman  in 
those  days ! and  it  was  salutary,  too, 
and  educative  for  him,  doubtless,  as 
well  as  novel.  But  what  moved  us 
most  in  Wilhelm  Meister  was  that 
which,  after  all,  will  always  move 
the  young  most, — the  poetry,  the 
eloquence.  Never,  surely,  was  Car- 
lyles prose  so  beautiful  and  pure  as 
in  his  rendering  of  the  Youths’  dirge 
over  Mignon! — ‘Well  is  our  treasure 
now  laid  up,  the  fair  image  of  the 
past.  Here  sleeps  it  in  the  marble, 
undecaying ; in  your  hearts,  also,  it 
lives,  it  works.  Travel,  travel,  back 
into  life!  Take  along  with  you  this 
holy  earnestness,  for  earnestness  alone 
makes  life  eternity.’  Here  we  had 
the  voice  of  the  great  Goethe  ; — not 


Ill 


EMERSON 


145 


the  stiff,  and  hindered,  and  frigid,  and 
factitious  Goethe  who  speaks  to  us 
too  often  from  those  sixty  volumes  of 
his,  but  of  the  great  Goethe,  and  the 
true  one. 

And  besides  those  voices,  there 
came  to  us  in  that  old  Oxford  time 
a voice  also  from  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  — a clear  and  pure  voice, 
which  for  my  ear,  at  any  rate,  brought 
a strain  as  new,  and  moving,  and  un- 
forgettable, as  the  strain  of  Newman, 
or  Carlyle,  or  Goethe.  Mr.  Lowell 
has  well  described  the  apparition  of 
Emerson  to  your  young  generation 
here,  in  that  distant  time  of  which  I 
am  speaking,  and  of  his  workings 
upon  them.  He  was  your  Newman, 
your  man  of  soul  and  genius  visible 


L 


146 


EMERSON 


in 


to  you  in  the  flesh,  speaking  to  your 
bodily  ears,  a present  object  for  your 
heart  and  imagination.  That  is  surely 
the  most  potent  of  all  influences ! 
nothing  can  come  up  to  it.  To  us 
at  Oxford  Emerson  was  but  a voice 
speaking  from  three  thousand  miles 
away.  But  so  well  he  spoke,  that 
from  that  time  forth  Boston  Bay  and 
Concord  were  names  invested  to  my 
ear  with  a sentiment  akin  to  that 
which  invests  for  me  the  names  of 
Oxford  and  of  Weimar  ; and  snatches 
of  Emerson’s  strain  fixed  themselves 
in  my  mind  as  imperishably  as  any  of 
the  eloquent  words  which  I have  been 
just  now  quoting.  ‘Then  dies  the 
man  in  you  ; then  once  more  perish 
the  buds  of  art,  poetry,  and  science, 


Ill 


EMERSON 


147 


as  they  have  died  already  in  a thou- 
sand thousand  men.’  ‘ What  Plato 
has  thought,  he  may  think  ; what  a 
saint  has  felt,  he  may  feel ; what  at 
any  time  has  befallen  any  man,  he  can 
understand.’  ‘Trust  thyself!  every 
heart  vibrates  to  that  iron  string. 
Accept  the  place  the  Divine  Provi- 
dence has  found  for  you,  the  society 
of  your  contemporaries,  the  connex- 
ion of  events.  Great  men  have 
always  done  so,  and  confided  them- 
selves childlike  to  the  genius  of  their 
age  ; betraying  their  perception  that 
the  Eternal  was  stirring  at  their  heart, 
working  through  their  hands,  pre- 
dominating in  all  their  being.  And 
we  are  now  men,  and  must  accept 
in  the  highest  spirit  the  same  tran- 


148 


EMERSON 


111 


scendent  destiny  ; and  not  pinched  in 
a corner,  not  cowards  fleeing  before 
a revolution,  but  redeemers  and  bene- 
factors, pious  aspirants  to  be  noble 
clay  plastic  under  the  Almighty  effort, 
let  us  advance  and  advance  on  chaos 
and  the  dark ! ’ These  lofty  sentences 
of  Emerson,  and  a hundred  others  of 
like  strain,  I never  have  lost  out  of 
my  memory  ; I never  can  lose  them. 

At  last  I find  myself  in  Emerson’s 
own  country,  and  looking  upon  Boston 
Bay.  Naturally  I revert  to  the  friend 
of  my  youth.  It  is  not  always  pleas- 
ant to  ask  oneself  questions  about  the 
friends  of  one’s  youth ; they  cannot 
always  well  support  it.  Carlyle,  for 
instance,  in  my  judgment,  cannot  well 
support  such  a return  upon  him.  Yet 


Ill 


EMERSON 


149 


we  should  make  the  return  ; we  should 
part  with  our  illusions,  we  should 
know  the  truth.  When  I come  to 
this  country,  where  Emerson  now 
counts  for  so  much,  and  where  such 
high  claims  are  made  for  him,  I pull 
myself  together,  and  ask  myself  what 
the  truth  about  this  object  of  my 
youthful  admiration  really  is.  Im- 
proper elements  often  come  into  our 
estimate  of  men.  We  have  lately 
seen  a German  critic  make  Goethe 
the  greatest  of  all  poets,  because 
Germany  is  now  the  greatest  of  mili- 
tary powers,  and  wants  a poet  to 
match.  Then,  too,  America  is  a young 
country ; and  young  countries,  like 
young  persons,  are  apt  sometimes  to 
evince  in  their  literary  judgments  a 


5o 


EMERSON 


hi 


want  of  scale  and  measure.  I set 
myself,  therefore,  resolutely  to'  come 
at  a real  estimate  of  Emerson,  and 
with  a leaning  even  to  strictness 
rather  than  to  indulgence.  That  is 
the  safer  course.  Time  has  no  in- 
dulgence ; any  veils  of  illusion  which 
we  may  have  left  around  an  object 
because  we  loved  it,  Time  is  sure  to 
strip  away. 

I was  reading  the  other  day  a 
notice  of  Emerson  by  a serious  and 
interesting  American  critic.  Fifty  or 
sixty  passages  in  Emerson’s  poems, 
says  this  critic, — who  had  doubtless 
himself  been  nourished  on  Emerson’s 
writings,  and  held  them  justly  dear, — 
fifty  or  sixty  passages  from  Emer- 


Ill 


EMERSON 


I5i 


son’s  poems  have  already  entered  into 
English  speech  as  matter  of  familiar 
and  universally  current  quotation. 
Here  is  a specimen  of  that  personal 
sort  of  estimate  which,  for  my  part, 
even  in  speaking  of  authors  dear  to 
me,  I would  try  to  avoid.  What  is 
the  kind  of  phrase  of  which  we  may 
fairly  say  that  it  has  entered  into 
English  speech  as  matter  of  familiar 
quotation  ? Such  a phrase,  surely, 
as  the  ‘ Patience  on  a monument  ’ 
of  Shakespeare ; as  the  ‘ Darkness 
visible’  of  Milton;  as  the  ‘Where 
ignorance  is  bliss  ’ of  Gray.  Of  not 
one  single  passage  in  Emerson’s 
poetry  can  it  be  truly  said  that  it 
has  become  a familiar  quotation  like 
phrases  of  this  kind.  It  is  not 


152 


EMERSON 


iii 


enough  that  it  should  be  familiar  to 
his  admirers,  familiar  in  New  Eng- 
land, familiar  even  throughout  the 
United  States;  it  must  be  familiar 
to  all  readers  and  lovers  of  English 
poetry.  Of  not  more  than  one  or 
two  passages  in  Emersons  poetry 
can  it,  I think,  be  truly  said,  that 
they  stand  ever  - present  in  the 
memory  of  even  many  lovers^ of 
English  poetry.  A great  number  of 
passages  from  his  poetry  are  no  doubt 
perfectly  familiar  to  the  mind  and 
lips  of  the  critic  whom  I have  men- 
tioned, and  perhaps  a wide  circle 
of  American  readers.  But  this  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  being  matter 
of  universal  quotation,  like  the  phrases 
of  the  legitimate  poets. 


Ill 


EMERSON 


153 


And,  in  truth,  one  of  the  legitimate 
poets,  Emerson,  in  my  opinion,  is 
not.  His  poetry  is  interesting,  it 
makes  one  think  ; but  it  is  not  the 
poetry  of  one  of  the  born  poets.  I 
say  it  of  him  with  reluctance,  al- 
though I am  sure  that  he  would 
have  said  it  of  himself ; but  I say  it 
with  reluctance,  because  I dislike 
giving  pain  to  his  admirers,  and  be- 
cause all  my  own  wish,  too,  is  to  say 
of  him  what  is  favourable.  But  I 
regard  myself,  not  as  speaking  to 
please  Emerson’s  admirers,  not  as 
speaking  to  please  myself ; but  rather, 
I repeat,  as  communing  with  Time 
and  Nature  concerning  the  produc- 
tions of  this  beautiful  and  rare  spirit, 
and  as  resigning  what  of  him  is  by 


154 


EMERSON 


hi 


their  unalterable  decree  touched  with 
caducity,  in  order  the  better  to  mark 
and  secure  that  in  him  which  is  im- 
mortal. 

Milton  says  that  poetry  ought  to  be 
simple,  sensuous,  impassioned.  Well, 
Emerson’s  poetry  is  seldom  either 
simple,  or  sensuous,  or  impassioned. 
In  general  it  lacks  directness  ; it 
lacks  concreteness  ; it  lacks  energy. 
His  grammar  is  often  embarrassed  ; 
in  particular,  the  want  of  clearly- 
marked  distinction  between  the  sub- 
ject and  the  object  of  his  sentence 
is  a frequent  cause  of  obscurity  in 
him.  A poem  which  shall  be  a plain, 
forcible,  inevitable  whole  he  hardly 
ever  produces.  Such  good  work  as 
the  noble  lines  graven  on  the  Concord 


Ill 


EMERSON 


155 


Monument  is  the  exception  with  him  ; 
such  ineffective  work  as  the  ‘ Fourth 
of  July  Ode’  or  the  ‘Boston  Hymn’ 
is  the  rule.  Even  passages  and  single 
lines  of  thorough  plainness  and  com- 
manding force  are  rare  in  his  poetry. 
They  exist,  of  course  ; but  when  we 
meet  with  them  they  give  us  a slight 
shock  of  surprise,  so  little  has  Emer- 
son accustomed  us  to  them.  Let  me 
have  the  pleasure  of  quoting  one  or 
two  of  these  exceptional  passages  : — 

‘ So  nigh  is  grandeur  to  our  dust, 

So  near  is  God  to  man, 

When  Duty  whispers  low,  Thou  must , 

The  youth  replies,  I can.'' 

Or  again  this  : — 

‘ Though  love  repine  and  reason  chafe, 
There  came  a voice  without  reply  : 


156 


EMERSON 


HI 


“ ’Tis  man’s  perdition  to  be  safe, 

When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die.” 

Excellent ! but  how  seldom  do  we 
get  from  him  a strain  blown  so  clearly 
and  firmly!  Take  another  passage 
where  his  strain  has  not  only  clear- 
ness, it  has  also  grace  and  beauty  : — 

* And  ever,  when  the  happy  child 
In  May  beholds  the  blooming  wild, 

And  hears  in  heaven  the  bluebird  sing, 

“ Onward,”  he  cries,  “ your  baskets  bring  ! 

In  the  next  field  is  air  more  mild, 

And  in  yon  hazy  west  is  Eden’s  balmier 
spring.”  ’ 

In  the  style  and  cadence  here  there 
is  a reminiscence,  I think,  of  Gray ; 
at  any  rate  the  pureness,  grace,  and 
beauty  of  these  lines  are  worthy  even 
of  Gray.  But  Gray  holds  his  high 
rank  as  a poet,  not  merely  by  the 


Ill 


EMERSON 


157 


beauty  and  grace  of  passages  in  his 
poems  ; not  merely  by  a diction 
generally  pure  in  an  age  of  impure 
diction  : he  holds  it,  above  all,  by 
the  power  and  skill  with  which  the 
evolution  of  his  poems  is  conducted. 
Here  is  his  grand  superiority  to 
Collins,  whose  diction  in  his  best 
poem,  the  ‘Ode  to  Evening,’  is  purer 
than  Gray’s  ; but  then  the  ‘ Ode  to 
Evening  ’ is  like  a river  which  loses 
itself  in  the  sand,  whereas  Gray’s  best 
poems  have  an  evolution  sure  and 
satisfying.  Emerson’s  ‘ Mayday,’  from 
which  I just  now  quoted,  has  no  real 
evolution  at  all  ; it  is  a series  of 
observations.  And,  in  general,  his 
poems  have  no  evolution.  Take,  for 
example,  his  ‘ Titmouse.’  Here  he  has 


58 


EMERSON 


iii 


an  excellent  subject ; and  his  observa- 
tion of  Nature,  moreover,  is  always 
marvellously  close  and  fine.  But 
compare  what  he  makes  of  his  meet- 
ing with  his  titmouse  with  what 
Cowper  or  Burns  makes  of  the  like 
kind  of  incident ! One  never  quite 
arrives  at  learning  what  the  titmouse 
actually  did  for  him  at  all,  though 
one  feels  a strong  interest  and  desire 
to  learn  it  ; but  one  is  reduced  to 
guessing,  and  cannot  be  quite  sure 
that  after  all  one  has  guessed  right. 
He  is  not  plain  and  concrete  enough, 
— in  other  words,  not  poet  enough, — 
to  be  able  to  tell  us.  And  a failure 
of  this  kind  goes  through  almost  all 
his  verse,  keeps  him  amid  symbolism 
and  allusion  and  the  fringes  of  things, 


Ill 


EMERSON 


59 


and,  in  spite  of  his  spiritual  power, 
deeply  impairs  his  poetic  value. 
Through  the  inestimable  virtue  of 
concreteness,  a simple  poem  like  ‘ The 
Bridge  ’ of  Longfellow,  or  the  ‘ School 
Days’  of  Mr.  Whittier,  is  of  more 
poetic  worth,  perhaps,  than  all  the 
verse  of  Emerson. 

I do  not,  then,  place  Emerson 
among  the  great  poets.  But  I go 
further,  and  say  that  I do  not  place 
him  among  the  great  writers,  the 
great  men  of  letters.  Who  are  the 
great  men  of  letters  ? They  are  men 
like  Cicero,  Plato,  Bacon,  Pascal, 
Swift,  Voltaire, — writers  with,  in  the 
first  place,  a genius  and  instinct  for 
style  ; writers  whose  prose  is  by  a 
kind  of  native  necessity  true  and 


160  EMERSON  m 

sound.  Now  the  style  of  Emerson, 
like  the  style  of  his  transcendentalist 
friends  and  of  the  ‘ Dial  ’ so  continually, 
— the  style  of  Emerson  is  capable  of 
falling  into  a strain  like  this,  which 
I take  from  the  beginning  of  his 
‘ Essay  on  Love  ’ : ‘ Every  soul  is  a 
celestial  being  to  every  other  soul. 
The  heart  has  its  sabbaths  and  jubi- 
lees, in  which  the  world  appears  as 
a hymeneal  feast,  and  all  natural 
sounds  and  the  circle  of  the  seasons 
are  erotic  odes  and  dances.’  Emer- 
son altered  this  sentence  in  the  later 
editions.  Like  Wordsworth,  he  was 
in  later  life  fond  of  altering ; and  in 
general  his  later  alterations,  like  those 
of  Wordsworth,  are  not  improve- 
ments. He  softened  the  passage  in 


Ill 


EMERSON 


161 


question,  however,  though  without 
really  mending  it.  I quote  it  in  its 
original  and  strongly -marked  form. 
Arthur  Stanley  used  to  relate  that 
about  the  year  1840,  being  in  con- 
versation with  some  Americans  in 
quarantine  at  Malta,  and  thinking  to 
please  them,  he  declared  his  warm  ad- 
miration for  Emerson’s  ■ Essays,’  then 
recently  published.  However,  the 
Americans  shook  their  heads,  and  told 
him  that  for  home  taste  Emerson  was 
decidedly  too  greeny.  We  will  hope, 
for  their  sakes,  that  the  sort  of  thing 
they  had  in  their  heads  was  such  writ- 
ing as  I have  just  quoted.  Unsound 
it  is,  indeed,  and  in  a style  almost 
impossible  to  a born  man  of  letters. 

It  is  a curious  thing,  that  quality 


M 


162 


EMERSON 


iii 


of  style  which  marks  the  great  writer, 
the  born  man  of  letters.  It  resides 
in  the  whole  tissue  of  his  work,  and 
of  his  work  regarded  as  a compo- 
sition for  literary  purposes.  Brilliant 
and  powerful  passages  in  a man’s 
writings  do  not  prove  his  possession 
of  it ; it  lies  in  their  whole  tissue. 
Emerson  has  passages  of  noble  and 
pathetic  eloquence,  such  as  those 
which  I quoted  at  the  beginning ; 
he  has  passages  of  shrewd  and  felicit- 
ous wit ; he  has  crisp  epigram ; he 
has  passages  of  exquisitely  touched 
observation  of  nature.  Yet  he  is  not 
a great  writer ; his  style  has  not  the 
requisite  wholeness  of  good  tissue. 
Even  Carlyle  is  not,  in  my  judgment, 
a great  writer.  He  has  surpassingly 


EMERSON 


in 


163 


powerful  qualities  of  expression,  far 
more  powerful  than  Emerson’s,  and 
reminding  one  of  the  gifts  of  expres- 
sion of  the  great  poets, — of  even 
Shakespeare  himself.  What  Emer- 
son so  admirably  says  of  Carlyle’s 
‘ devouring  eyes  and  portraying 
hand,’  ‘ those  thirsty  eyes,  those  por- 
trait-eating, portrait-painting  eyes  of 
thine,  those  fatal  perceptions,’  is 
thoroughly  true.  What  a description 
is  Carlyle’s  of  the  first  publisher 
of  Sartor  Resartus , ‘ to  whom  the 
idea  of  a new  edition  of  Sartor  is 
frightful,  or  rather  ludicrous,  un- 
imaginable’; of  this  poor  Fraser,  in 
whose  ‘wonderful  world  of  Tory 
pamphleteers,  conservative  Younger- 
brothers,  Regent  Street  loungers, 


164 


EMERSON 


II! 


Crockford  gamblers,  Irish  Jesuits, 
drunken  reporters,  and  miscellaneous 
unclean  persons  (whom  nitre  and 
much  soap  will  not  wash  clean),  not 
a soul  has  expressed  the  smallest 
wish  that  way ! ’ What  a portrait, 
again,  of  the  well-beloved  John  Ster- 
ling ! ‘ One,  and  the  best,  of  a small 

class  extant  here,  who,  nigh  drowning 
in  a black  wreck  of  Infidelity  (lighted 
up  by  some  glare  of  Radicalism  only, 
now  growing  dim  too),  and  about  to 
perish,  saved  themselves  into  a Cole- 
ridgian  Shovel-  Hattedness.’  What 
touches  in  the  invitation  of  Emerson 
to  London!  ‘You  shall  see  block- 
heads by  the  million  ; Pickwick  him- 
self shall  be  visible, — innocent  young 
Dickens,  reserved  for  a questionable 


Ill 


EMERSON 


165 


fate.  The  great  Wordsworth  shall 
talk  till  you  yourself  pronounce  him 
to  be  a bore.  Southey’s  complexion 
is  still  healthy  mahogany  brown,  with 
a fleece  of  white  hair,  and  eyes  that 
seem  running  at  full  gallop.  Leigh 
Hunt,  man  of  genius  in  the  shape  of 
a cockney,  is  my  near  neighbour, 
with  good  humour  and  no  common- 
sense  ; old  Rogers  with  his  pale 
head,  white,  bare,  and  cold  as  snow, 
with  those  large  blue  eyes,  cruel, 
sorrowful,  and  that  sardonic  shelf 
chin.’  How  inimitable  it  all  is  ! And 
finally,  for  one  must  not  go  on  for 
ever,  this  version  of  a London  Sun- 
day, with  the  public -houses  closed 
during  the  hours  of  divine  service ! 
'It  is  silent  Sunday ; the  populace 


EMERSON 


m 


1 66 


not  yet  admitted  to  their  beer-shops, 
till  the  respectabilities  conclude  their 
rubric  mummeries, — a much  more 
audacious  feat  than  beer.’  Yet  even 
Carlyle  is  not,  in  my  judgment,  to 
be  called  a great  writer ; one  cannot 
think  of  ranking  him  with  men  like 
Cicero  and  Plato  and  Swift  and  Vol- 
taire. Emerson  freely  promises  to 
Carlyle  immortality  for  his  histories. 
They  will  not  have  it.  Why?  Be- 
cause the  materials  furnished  to  him 
by  that  devouring  eye  of  his,  and  that 
portraying  hand,  were  not  wrought 
in  and  subdued  by  him  to  what  his 
work,  regarded  as  a composition  for 
literary  purposes,  required.  Occur- 
ring in  conversation,  breaking  out  in 
familiar  correspondence,  they  are  mag- 


Ill 


EMERSON 


167 

nificent,  inimitable ; nothing  more  is 
required  of  them ; thus  thrown  out 
anyhow,  they  serve  their  turn  and 
fulfil  their  function.  And,  therefore, 
I should  not  wonder  if  really  Carlyle 
lived,  in  the  long  run,  by  such  an  in- 
valuable record  as  that  correspondence 
between  him  and  Emerson,  of  which 
we  owe  the  publication  to  Mr.  Charles 
Norton, — by  this  and  not  by  his 
works,  as  Johnson  lives  in  Boswell, 
not  by  his  works.  For  Carlyle’s 
sallies,  as  the  staple  of  a literary 
work,  become  wearisome ; and  as 
time  more  and  more  applies  to  Car- 
lyle’s works  its  stringent  test,  this 
will  be  felt  more  and  more.  Shake- 
speare, Moliere,  Swift, — they,  too,  had, 
like  Carlyle,  the  devouring  eye  and 


EMERSON 


in 


1 68 


the  portraying  hand.  But  they  are 
great  literary  masters,  they  are 
supreme  writers,  because  they  knew 
how  to  work  into  a literary  compo- 
sition their  materials,  and  to  subdue 
them  to  the  purposes  of  literary  effect. 
Carlyle  is  too  wilful  for  this,  too  turbid, 
too  vehement. 

You  will  think  I deal  in  nothing 
but  negatives.  I have  been  saying 
that  Emerson  is  not  one  of  the  great 
poets,  the  great  writers.  He  has  not 
their  quality  of  style.  He  is,  how- 
ever, the  propounder  of  a philosophy. 
The  Platonic  dialogues  afford  us  the 
example  of  exquisite  literary  form 
and  treatment  given  to  philosophical 
ideas.  Plato  is  at  once  a great  lite 
rary  man  and  a great  philosopher. 


Ill 


EMERSON 


169 

If  we  speak  carefully,  we  cannot  call 
Aristotle  or  Spinoza  or  Kant  great 
literary  men,  or  their  productions 
great  literary  works.  But  their  work 
is  arranged  with  such  constructive 
power  that  they  build  a philosophy, 
and  are  justly  called  great  philo- 
sophical writers.  Emerson  cannot, 
I think,  be  called  with  justice  a great 
philosophical  writer.  He  cannot 
build ; his  arrangement  of  philo- 
sophical ideas  has  no  progress  in  it, 
no  evolution  ; he  does  not  construct 
a philosophy.  Emerson  himself 
knew  the  defects  of  his  method,  or 
rather  want  of  method,  very  well ; 
indeed,  he  and  Carlyle  criticise  them- 
selves and  one  another  in  a way 
which  leaves  little  for  any  one  else 


i7o 


EMERSON 


hi 


to  do  in  the  way  of  formulating  their 
defects.  Carlyle  formulates  perfectly 
the  defects  of  his  friend’s  poetic  and 
literary  production  when  he  says  of 
the  ‘ Dial  ’ : ‘For  me  it  is  too  ethereal, 
speculative,  theoretic ; I will  have  all 
things  condense  themselves,  take 
shape  and  body,  if  they  are  to  have 
my  sympathy.’  And,  speaking  of 
Emerson’s  orations,  he  says  : ‘ I long 
to  see  some  concrete  Thing,  some 
Event,  Man’s  Life,  American  Forest, 
or  piece  of  Creation,  which  this 
Emerson  loves  and  wonders  at,  well 
Emersonised , — depictured  by  Emer- 
son, filled  with  the  life  of  Emerson, 
and  cast  forth  from  him,  then  to  live 
by  itself.  If  these  orations  balk  me 
of  this,  how  profitable  soever  they 


Ill 


EMERSON 


7* 


may  be  for  others,  I will  not  love 
them.’  Emerson  himself  formulates 
perfectly  the  defect  of  his  own  philo- 
sophical productions  when  he  speaks 
of  his  ‘ formidable  tendency  to  the 
lapidary  style.  I build  my  house  of 
boulders.’  ‘ Here  I sit  and  read  and 
write,’  he  says  again,  ‘ with  very  little 
system,  and,  as  far  as  regards  com- 
position, with  the  most  fragmentary 
result ; paragraphs  incomprehensible, 
each  sentence  an  infinitely  repellent 
particle.’  Nothing  can  be  truer;  and 
the  work  of  a Spinoza  or  Kant,  of  the 
men  who  stand  as  great  philosophical 
writers,  does  not  proceed  in  this 
wise. 

Some  people  will  tell  you  that 
Emerson’s  poetry,  indeed,  is  too  ab- 


172 


EMERSON 


iii 


stract,  and  his  philosophy  too  vague, 
but  that  his  best  work  is  his  English 
Traits.  The  English  Traits  are  be- 
yond question  very  pleasant  reading. 
It  is  easy  to  praise  them,  easy  to 
commend  the  author  of  them.  But 
I insist  on  always  trying  Emerson’s 
work  by  the  highest  standards.  I 
esteem  him  too  much  to  try  his  work 
by  any  other.  Tried  by  the  highest 
standards,  and  compared  with  the 
work  of  the  excellent  markers  and 
recorders  of  the  traits  of  human  life, — 
of  writers  like  Montaigne,  La  Bruyere, 
Addison, — the  English  Traits  will  not 
stand  the  comparison.  Emerson’s 
observation  has  not  the  disinterested 
quality  of  the  observation  of  these 
masters.  It  is  the  observation  of 


Ill 


EMERSON 


173 


a man  systematically  benevolent,  as 
Hawthornes  observation  in  Our  Old 
Home  is  the  work  of  a man  chagrined. 
Hawthorne’s  literary  talent  is  of  the 
first  order.  His  subjects  are  gene- 
rally not  to  me  subjects  of  the  highest 
interest ; but  his  literary  talent  is  of 
the  first  order,  the  finest,  I think, 
which  America  has  yet  produced, — 
finer,  by  much,  than  Emerson’s.  Yet 
Our  Old  Home  is  not  a masterpiece 
any  more  than  English  Traits . In 

neither  of  them  is  the  observer  disin- 
terested enough.  The  author’s  atti- 
tude in  each  of  these  cases  can  easily 
be  understood  and  defended.  Haw- 
thorne was  a sensitive  man,  so  situated 
in  England  that  he  was  perpetually 
in  contact  with  the  British  Philistine  ; 


EMERSON 


in 


174 

and  the  British  Philistine  is  a trying 
personage.  Emerson’s  systematic  be- 
nevolence comes  from  what  he  him- 
self calls  somewhere  his  ‘persistent 
optimism  ’ ; and  his  persistent  optim- 
ism is  the  root  of  his  greatness  and 
the  source  of  his  charm.  But  still  let 
us  keep  our  literary  conscience  true, 
and  judge  every  kind  of  literary  work 
by  the  laws  really  proper  to  it.  The 
kind  of  work  attempted  in  the  English 
Traits  and  in  Our  Old  Home  is  work 
which  cannot  be  done  perfectly  with  a 
bias  such  as  that  given  by  Emerson’s 
optimism  or  by  Hawthorne’s  chagrin. 
Consequently,  neither  English  Traits 
nor  Our  Old  Home  is  a work  of  per- 
fection in  its  kind. 

Not  with  the  Miltons  and  Grays, 


Ill 


EMERSON 


175 


not  with  the  Platos  and  Spinozas,  not 
with  the  Swifts  and  Voltaires,  not 
with  the  Montaignes  and  Addisons, 
can  we  rank  Emerson.  His  work  of 
various  kinds,  when  one  compares  it 
with  the  work  done  in  a corresponding 
kind  by  these  masters,  fails  to  stand 
the  comparison.  No  man  could  see 
this  clearer  than  Emerson  himself.  It 
is  hard  not  to  feel  despondency  when 
we  contemplate  our  failures  and  short- 
comings : and  Emerson,  the  least  self- 
flattering  and  the  most  modest  of 
men,  saw  so  plainly  what  was  lacking 
to  him  that  he  had  his  moments  of 
despondency.  ‘ Alas,  my  friend,’  he 
writes  in  reply  to  Carlyle,  who  had 
exhorted  him  to  creative  work, — ‘Alas, 
my  friend,  I can  do  no  such  gay  thing  as 


EMERSON 


in 


176 

you  say.  I do  not  belong  to  the  poets, 
but  only  to  a low  department  of  litera- 
ture,— the  reporters ; suburban  men/ 
He  deprecated  his  friend’s  praise; 
praise  ‘generous  to  a fault,’  he  calls 
it ; praise  ‘ generous  to  the  shaming 
of  me, — cold,  fastidious,  ebbing  person 
that  I am.  Already  in  a former  letter 
you  had  said  too  much  good  of  my 
poor  little  arid  book,  which  is  as  sand 
to  my  eyes.  I can  only  say  that  I 
heartily  wish  the  book  were  better ; 
and  I must  try  and  deserve  so  much 
favour  from  the  kind  gods  by  a bolder 
and  truer  living  in  the  months  to 
come, — such  as  may  perchance  one 
day  release  and  invigorate  this  cramp 
hand  of  mine.  When  I see  how 
much  w'ork  is  to  be  done ; what 


Ill 


EMERSON 


1 77 


room  for  a poet,  for  any  spiritualist, 
in  this  great,  intelligent,  sensual,  and 
avaricious  America, — I lament  my  fum- 
bling fingers  and  stammering  tongue.’ 
Again,  as  late  as  1870,  he  writes  to 
Carlyle : ‘ There  is  no  example  of 
constancy  like  yours,  and  it  always 
stings  my  stupor  into  temporary  re- 
covery and  wonderful  resolution  to 
accept  the  noble  challenge.  But  “ the 
strong  hours  conquer  us;”  and  I am 
the  victim  of  miscellany, — miscellany 
of  designs,  vast  debility,  and  procras- 
tination.’ The  forlorn  note  belonging 
to  the  phrase,  ‘ vast  debility,’  recalls 
that  saddest  and  most  discouraged 
of  writers,  the  author  of  Obermann , 
Senancour,  with  whom  Emerson  has 
in  truth  a certain  kinship.  He  has, 


N 


i78 


EMERSON 


iii 


in  common  with  Senancour,  his  pure- 
ness, his  passion  for  nature,  his  single 
eye  ; and  here  we  find  him  -confessing, 
like  Senancour,  a sense  in  himself  of 
sterility  and  impotence. 

And  now  I think  I have  cleared 
the  ground.  I have  given  up  to 
envious  Time  as  much  of  Emerson  as 
Time  can  fairly  expect  ever  to  obtain. 
We  have  not  in  Emerson  a great  poet, 
a great  writer,  a great  philosophy- 
maker.  His  relation  to  us  is  not  that 
of  one  of  those  personages  ; yet  it  is 
a relation  of,  I think,  even  superior 
importance.  His  relation  to  us  is 
more  like  that  of  the  Roman  Emperor 
Marcus  Aurelius.  Marcus  Aurelius 
is  not  a great  writer,  a great  philo- 


hi  EMERSON  179 

sophy -maker;  he  is  the  friend  and 
aider  of  those  who  would  live  in  the 
spirit.  Emerson  is  the  same.  He 
is  the  friend  and  aider  of  those  who 
would  live  in  the  spirit.  All  the  points 
in  thinking  which  are  necessary  for 
this  purpose  he  takes  ; but  he  does  not 
combine  them  into  a system,  or  pre- 
sent them  as  a regular  philosophy. 
Combined  in  a system  by  a man  with 
the  requisite  talent  for  this  kind  of 
thing,  they  would  be  less  useful  than  as 
Emerson  gives  them  to  us  ; and  the 
man  with  the  talent  so  to  systematise 
them  would  be  less  impressive  than 
Emerson.  They  do  very  well  as 
they  now  stand; — like  ‘boulders,’  as 
he  says  ; — in  ‘ paragraphs  incompress- 
ible, each  sentence  an  infinitely  repel- 


i8o 


EMERSON 


m 


lent  particle.’  In  such  sentences  his 
main  points  recur  again  and  again, 
and  become  fixed  in  the  memory. 

We  all  know  them.  First  and  fore- 
most, character.  Character  is  every- 
thing. * That  which  all  things  tend 
to  educe, — which  freedom,  cultivation, 
intercourse,  revolutions,  go  to  form 
and  deliver, — is  character.’  Character 
and  self-reliance.  ‘Trust  thyself! 
every  heart  vibrates  to  that  iron 
string.’  And  yet  we  have  our  being 
in  a not  ourselves.  ‘ There  is  a power 
above  and  behind  us,  and  we  are  the 
channels  of  its  communications.’  But 
our  lives  must  be  pitched  higher. 
‘ Life  must  be  lived  on  a higher  plane  ; 
we  must  go  up  to  a higher  platform,  to 
which  we  are  always  invited  to  ascend  ; 


hi  EMERSON  1 8 1 

there  the  whole  scene  changes.’  The 
good  we  need  is  for  ever  close  to  us, 
though  we  attain  it  not.  ‘ On  the 
brink  of  the  waters  of  life  and  truth, 
we  are  miserably  dying.’  This  good 
is  close  to  us,  moreover,  in  our  daily 
life,  and  in  the  familiar,  homely  places. 
‘ The  unremitting  retention  of  simple 
and  high  sentiments  in  obscure  duties, 
— that  is  the  maxim  for  us.  Let  us 
be  poised  and  wise,  and  our  own  to- 
day. Let  us  treat  the  men  and  women 
well, — treat  them  as  if  they  were  real ; 
perhaps  they  are.  Men  live  in  their 
fancy,  like  drunkards  whose  hands 
are  too  soft  and  tremulous  for  success- 
ful labour.  I settle  myself  ever  firmer 
in  the  creed,  that  we  should  not  post- 
pone and  refer  and  wish,  but  do  broad 


82 


EMERSON 


iii 


justice  where  we  are,  by  whomsoever 
we  deal  with ; accepting  our  actual 
companions  and  circumstances,  how7- 
ever  humble  or  odious,  as  the  mystic 
officials  to  whom  the  universe  has 
delegated  its  whole  pleasure  for  us. 
Massachusetts,  Connecticut  River,  and 
Boston  Bay,  you  think  paltry  places, 
and  the  ear  loves  names  of  foreign 
and  classic  topography.  But  here  we 
are ; and  if  w7e  will  tarry  a little  we 
may  come  to  learn  that  here  is  best. 
See  to  it  only  that  thyself  is  here.’ 
Furthermore,  the  good  is  close  to  us 
all.  ‘ I resist  the  scepticism  of  our 
education  and  of  our  educated  men. 
I do  not  believe  that  the  differences 
of  opinion  and  character  in  men  are 
organic.  I do  not  recognise,  besides 


Ill 


EMERSON 


183 


the  class  of  the  good  and  the  wise,  a 
permanent  class  of  sceptics,  or  a class 
of  conservatives,  or  of  malignants,  or 
of  materialists.  I do  not  believe  in 
the  classes.  Every  man  has  a call  of 
the  power  to  do  something  unique.’ 
Exclusiveness  is  deadly.  ‘ The  ex- 
clusive in  social  life  does  not  see  that 
he  excludes  himself  from  enjoyment 
in  the  attempt  to  appropriate  it.  The 
exclusionist  in  religion  does  not  see 
that  he  shuts  the  door  of  heaven  on 
himself  in  striving  to  shut  out  others. 
Treat  men  as  pawns  and  ninepins,  and 
you  shall  suffer  as  well  as  they.  If 
you  leave  out  their  heart  you  shall 
lose  your  own.  The  selfish  man  suffers 
more  from  his  selfishness  than  he 
from  whom  that  selfishness  withholds 


EMERSON 


hi 


184 

some  important  benefit.’  A sound 
nature  will  be  inclined  to  refuse  ease 
and  self-indulgence.  ‘To  live  with 
some  rigour  of  temperance,  or  some 
extreme  of  generosity,  seems  to  be  an 
asceticism  which  common  good-nature 
would  appoint  to  those  who  are  at 
ease  and  in  plenty,  in  sign  that  they 
feel  a brotherhood  with  the  great 
multitude  of  suffering  men.’  Com- 
pensation, finally,  is  the  great  law  of 
life  ; it  is  everywhere,  it  is  sure,  and 
there  is  no  escape  from  it.  This  is 
that  ‘ lawT  alive  and  beautiful,  which 
works  over  our  heads  and  under  our 
feet.  Pitiless,  it  avails  itself  of  our 
success  when  we  obey  it,  and  of  our 
ruin  when  we  contravene  it.  We  are 
all  secret  believers  in  it.  It  rewards 


Ill 


EMERSON 


185 


actions  after  their  nature.  The  re- 
ward of  a thing  well  done  is  to  have 
done  it.  The  thief  steals  from  him- 
self, the  swindler  swindles  himself. 
You  must  pay  at  last  your  own  debt.’ 
This  is  tonic  indeed ! And  let  no 
one  object  that  it  is  too  general ; that 
more  practical,  positive  direction  is 
what  we  want  ; that  Emerson’s  op- 
timism, self-reliance,  and  indifference 
to  favourable  conditions  for  our  life 
and  growth  have  in  them  something 
of  danger.  ‘Trust  thyself;’  ‘what 
attracts  my  attention  shall  have  it ; ’ 
‘ though  thou  shouldst  walk  the  world 
over  thou  shalt  not  be  able  to  find  a 
condition  inopportune  or  ignoble ; ’ 
‘ what  we  call  vulgar  society  is  that 
society  whose  poetry  is  not  yet  written, 


EMERSON 


in 


1 86 

but  which  you  shall  presently  make 
as  enviable  and  renowned  as  any.’ 
With  maxims  like  these,  we  surely, 
it  may  be  said,  run  some  risk  of  being 
made  too  well  satisfied  with  our  own 
actual  self  and  state,  however  crude 
and  imperfect  they  may  be.  ‘Trust 
thyself?’  It  may  be  said  that  the 
common  American  or  Englishman  is 
more  than  enough  disposed  already  to 
trust  himself.  I often  reply,  when  our 
sectarians  are  praised  for  following 
conscience  : Our  people  are  very 
good  in  following  their  conscience  ; 
where  they  are  not  so  good  is  in  ascer- 
taining whether  their  conscience  tells 
them  right.  ‘ What  attracts  my  atten- 
tion shall  have  it?’  Well,  that  is  our 
people’s  plea  when  they  run  after  the 


Ill 


EMERSON 


1 87 


Salvation  Army,  and  desire  Messrs. 
Moody  and  Sankey.  ‘ Thou  shalt  not 
be  able  to  find  a condition  inoppor- 
tune or  ignoble?’  But  think  of  the 
turn  of  the  good  people  of  our  race 
for  producing  a life  of  hideousness  and 
immense  ennui  ; think  of  that  speci- 
men of  your  own  New  England  life 
which  Mr.  Howells  gives  us  in  one 
of  his  charming  stories  which  I was 
reading  lately ; think  of  the  life  of 
that  ragged  New  England  farm  in 
the  Lady  of  the  Aroostook ; think  of 
Deacon  Blood,  and  Aunt  Maria,  and 
the  straight-backed  chairs  with  black 
horse-hair  seats,  and  Ezra  Perkins 
with  perfect  self-reliance  depositing 
his  travellers  in  the  snow ! I can 
truly  say  that  in  the  little  which  I 


EMERSON 


in 


have  seen  of  the  life  of  New  England, 
I am  more  struck  with  what  has  been 
achieved  than  with  the  crudeness  and 
failure.  But  no  doubt  there  is  still 
a great  deal  of  crudeness  also.  Your 
own  novelists  say  there  is,  and  I sup- 
pose they  say  true.  In  the  New 
England,  as  in  the  Old,  our  people 
have  to  learn,  I suppose,  not  that 
their  modes  of  life  are  beautiful  and 
excellent  already  ; they  have  rather  to 
learn  that  they  must  transform  them. 

To  adopt  this  line  of  objection  to 
Emerson’s  deliverances  would,  how- 
ever, be  unjust.  In  the  first  place, 
Emerson’s  points  are  in  themselves 
true,  if  understood  in  a certain  high 
sense ; they  are  true  and  fruitful. 
And  the  right  work  to  be  done,  at 


Ill 


EMERSON 


the  hour  when  he  appeared,  was  to 
affirm  them  generally  and  absolutely. 
Only  thus  could  he  break  through  the 
hard  and  fast  barrier  of  narrow,  fixed 
ideas,  which  he  found  confronting  him, 
and  win  an  entrance  for  new  ideas. 
Had  he  attempted  developments  which 
may  now  strike  us  as  expedient,  he 
would  have  excited  fierce  antagonism, 
and  probably  effected  little  or  nothing. 
The  time  might  come  for  doing  other 
work  later,  but  the  work  which  Emer- 
son did  was  the  right  work  to  be  done 
then. 

In  the  second  place,  strong  as  was 
Emerson’s  optimism,  and  unconquer- 
able as  was  his  belief  in  a good  result 
to  emerge  from  all  which  he  saw 
going  on  around  him,  no  misanthro- 


190  EMERSON  rn 

pical  satirist  ever  saw  shortcomings 
and  absurdities  more  clearly  than  he 
did,  or  exposed  them  more  courage- 
ously. When  he  sees  ‘ the  meanness,’ 
as  he  calls  it,  'of  American  politics,’ 
he  congratulates  Washington  on  being 
‘long  already  happily  dead,’  on  being 
‘ wrapt  in  his  shroud  and  for  ever 
safe.’  With  how  firm  a touch  he 
delineates  the  faults  of  your  two  great 
political  parties  of  forty  years  ago ! 
The  Democrats,  he  says,  ‘ have  not 
at  heart  the  ends  which  give  to  the 
name  of  democracy  what  hope  and 
virtue  are  in  it.  The  spirit  of  our 
American  radicalism  is  destructive  and 
aimless ; it  is  not  loving ; it  has  no 
ulterior  and  divine  ends,  but  is  de- 
structive only  out  of  hatred  and  selfi 


Ill 


EMERSON 


191 

ishness.  On  the  other  side,  the  con- 
servative party,  composed  of  the  most 
moderate,  able,  and  cultivated  part  of 
the  population,  is  timid,  and  merely 
defensive  of  property.  It  vindicates 
no  right,  it  aspires  to  no  real  good,  it 
brands  no  crime,  it  proposes  no  gene- 
rous policy.  From  neither  party,  when 
in  power,  has  the  world  any  benefit  to 
expect  in  science,  art,  or  humanity,  at 
all  commensurate  with  the  resources 
of  the  nation.’  Then  with  what  subtle 
though  kindly  irony  he  follows  the 
gradual  withdrawal  in  New  England, 
in  the  last  half  century,  of  tender 
consciences  from  the  social  organisa- 
tions,— the  bent  for  experiments  such 
as  that  of  Brook  Farm  and  the  like, — 
follows  it  in  all  its  ‘ dissidence  of  dis- 


192 


EMERSON 


hi 


sent  and  Protestantism  of  the  Pro- 
testant religion  ! ’ He  even  loves  to 
rally  the  New  Englander  on  his  phil- 
anthropical  activity,  and  to  find  his 
beneficence  and  its  institutions  a bore  ! 
‘ Your  miscellaneous  popular  charities, 
the  education  at  college  of  fools,  the 
building  of  meeting-houses  to  the  vain 
end  to  which  many  of  these  now  stand, 
alms  to  sots,  and  the  thousand -fold 
relief  societies, — though  I confess  with 
shame  that  I sometimes  succumb  and 
give  the  dollar,  yet  it  is  a wicked 
dollar,  which  by  and  by  I shall  have 
the  manhood  to  withhold.’  ‘ Our 
Sunday  schools  and  churches  and 
pauper  societies  are  yokes  to  the 
neck.  We  pain  ourselves  to  please 
nobody.  There  are  natural  ways  of 


Ill 


EMERSON 


193 


arriving  at  the  same  ends  at  whi£h 
these  aim,  but  do  not  arrive.’  * Nature 
does  not  like  our  benevolence  or  our 
learning  much  better  than  she  likes 
our  frauds  and  wars.  When  we  come 
out  of  the  caucus,  or  the  bank,  or  the 
Abolition  convention,  or  the  Temper- 
ance meeting,  or  the  Transcendental 
club,  into  the  fields  and  woods, 
she  says  to  us : “ So  hot,  my  little 
sir  ? ” ’ 

Yes,  truly,  his  insight  is  admirable; 
his  truth  is  precious.  Yet  the  secret 
of  his  effect  is  not  even  in  these  ; it  is 
in  his  temper.  It  is  in  the  hopeful, 
serene,  beautiful  temper  wherewith 
these,  in  Emerson,  are  indissolubly 
joined  ; in  which  they  work,  and  have 
their  being.  He  says  himself:  ‘We 


o 


194 


EMERSON 


in 


judge  of  a man’s  wisdom  by  his  hope, 
knowing  that  the  perception  of  the 
inexhaustibleness  of  nature  is  an  im- 
mortal youth.’  If  this  be  so,  how 
wise  is  Emerson  ! for  never  had  man 
such  a sense  of  the  inexhaustibleness 
of  nature,  and  such  hope.  It  was  the 
ground  of  his  being  ; it  never  failed 
him.  Even  when  he  is  sadly  avowing 
the  imperfection  of  his  literary  power 
and  resources,  lamenting  his  fumbling 
fingers  and  stammering  tongue,  he 
adds:  ‘Yet,  as  I tell  you,  I am  very 
easy  in  my  mind  and  never  dream  of 
suicide.  My  whole  philosophy,  which 
is  very  real,  teaches  acquiescence  and 
optimism.  Sure  I am  that  the  right 
word  will  be  spoken,  though  I cut 
out  my  tongue.’  In  his  old  age,  with 


Ill 


EMERSON 


195 


friends  dying  and  life  failing,  his  tone 
of  cheerful,  forward-looking  hope  is 
still  the  same.  ‘ A multitude  of  young 
men  are  growing  up  here  of  high 
promise,  and  I compare  gladly  the 
social  poverty  of  my  youth  with  the 
power  on  which  these  draw.’  His 
abiding  word  for  us,  the  word  by 
which  being  dead  he  yet  speaks  to  us, 
is  this : ‘ That  which  befits  us,  em- 
bosomed in  beauty  and  wonder  as  we 
are,  is  cheerfulness  and  courage,  and 
the  endeavour  to  realise  our  aspira- 
tions. Shall  not  the  heart,  which  has 
received  so  much,  trust  the  Power  by 
which  it  lives  ? ’ 

One  can  scarcely  overrate  the  im- 
portance of  thus  holding  fast  to  hap- 
piness and  hope.  It  gives  to  Emer- 


196  EMERSON  111 

son’s  work  an  invaluable  virtue.  As 
Wordsworth’s  poetry  is,  in  my  judg- 
ment, the  most  important  work  done 
in  verse,  in  our  language,  during  the 
present  century,  so  Emerson’s  Essays 
are,  I think,  the  most  important  work 
done  in  prose.  His  work  is  more 
important  than  Carlyle’s.  Let  us  be 
just  to  Carlyle,  provoking  though  he 
often  is.  Not  only  has  he  that  genius 
of  his  which  makes  Emerson  say 
truly  of  his  letters,  that  ‘ they  savour 
always  of  eternity.’  More  than  this 
may  be  said  of  him.  The  scope  and 
upshot  of  his  teaching  are  true ; 4 his 
guiding  genius/  to  quote  Emerson 
again,  is  really  4 his  moral  sense, 
his  perception  of  the  sole  importance 
of  truth  and  justice.’  But  consider 


Ill 


EMERSON 


197 


Carlyles  temper,  as  we  have  been 
considering  Emerson’s ! take  his  own 
account  of  it ! ‘ Perhaps  London  is 

the  proper  place  for  me  after  all, 
seeing  all  places  are  /^proper  : who 
knows  ? Meanwhile,  I lead  a most 
dyspeptic,  solitary,  self-shrouded  life  ; 
consuming,  if  possible  in  silence,  my 
considerable  daily  allotment  of  pain ; 
glad  when  any  strength  is  left  in  me 
for  writing,  which  is  the  only  use  I 
can  see  in  myself, — too  rare  a case  of 
late.  The  ground  of  my  existence  is 
black  as  death ; too  black,  when  all 
void  too ; but  at  times  there  paint 
themselves  on  it  pictures  of  gold, 
and  rainbow,  and  lightning ; all  the 
brighter  for  the  black  ground,  I sup- 
pose. Withal,  I am  very  much  of  a 


198 


EMERSON 


in 


fool.’ — No,  not  a fool,  but  turbid  and 
morbid,  wilful  and  perverse.  ‘We 
judge  of  a man’s  wisdom  by  his  hope.’ 
Carlyle’s  perverse  attitude  towards 
happiness  cuts  him  off  from  hope. 
He  fiercely  attacks  the  desire  for 
happiness  ; his  grand  point  in  Sartor , 
his  secret  in  which  the  soul  may  find 
rest,  is  that  one  shall  cease  to  desire 
happiness,  that  one  should  learn  to 
say  to  oneself : ‘ What  if  thou  wert 
born  and  predestined  not  to  be  happy, 
but  to  be  unhappy!’  He  is  wrong; 
Saint  Augustine  is  the  better  philo- 
sopher, who  says  : ‘ Act  we  must  in 
pursuance  of  what  gives  us  most 
delight.’  Epictetus  and  Augustine 
can  be  severe  moralists  enough ; but 
both  of  them  know  and  frankly  say 


Ill 


EMERSON 


!99 


that  the  desire  for  happiness  is  the 
root  and  ground  of  man’s  being.  Tell 
him  and  show  him  that  he  places  his 
happiness  wrong,  that  he  seeks  for 
delight  where  delight  will  never  be 
really  found ; then  you  illumine  and 
further  him.  But  you  only  confuse 
him  by  telling  him  to  cease  to  desire 
happiness  : and  you  will  not  tell  him 
this  unless  you  are  already  confused 
yourself. 

Carlyle  preached  the  dignity  of 
labour,  the  necessity  of  righteous- 
ness, the  love  of  veracity,  the  hatred 
of  shams.  He  is  said  by  many  people 
to  be  a great  teacher,  a great  helper 
for  us,  because  he  does  so.  But 
what  is  the  due  and  eternal  result 
of  labour,  righteousness,  veracity  ? — 


200 


EMERSON 


in 


Happiness.  And  how  are  we  drawn 
to  them  by  one  who,  instead  of  mak- 
ing us  feel  that  with  them  is  happi- 
ness, tells  us  that  perhaps  we  were 
predestined  not  to  be  happy  but  to 
be  unhappy  ? 

You  will  find,  in  especial,  many 
earnest  preachers  of  our  popular  re- 
ligion to  be  fervent  in  their  praise  and 
admiration  of  Carlyle.  His  insistence 
on  labour,  righteousness,  and  vera- 
city, pleases  them  ; his  contempt  for 
happiness  pleases  them  too.  I read 
the  other  day  a tract  against  smoking, 
although  I do  not  happen  to  be  a 
smoker  myself.  f Smoking,’  said  the 
tract,  4 is  liked  because  it  gives  agree- 
able sensations.  Now  it  is  a positive 
objection  to  a thing  that  it  gives 


Ill 


EMERSON 


201 


agreeable  sensations.  An  earnest  man 
will  expressly  avoid  what  gives  agree- 
able sensations.’  Shortly  afterwards 
I was  inspecting  a school,  and  I found 
the  children  reading  a piece  of  poetry 
on  the  common  theme  that  we  are 
here  to-day  and  gone  to-morrow.  I 
shall  soon  be  gone,  the  speaker  in  this 
poem  was  made  to  say, — 

‘ And  I shall  be  glad  to  go, 

For  the  world  at  best  is  a dreary  place, 
And  my  life  is  getting  low.’ 

How  usual  a language  of  popular 
religion  that  is,  on  our  side  of  the 
Atlantic  at  any  rate ! But  then  our 
popular  religion,  in  disparaging  happi- 
ness here  below,  knows  very  well 
what  it  is  after.  It  has  its  eye  on  a 
happiness  in  a future  life  above  the 


202 


EMERSON 


ill 


clouds,  in  the  New  Jerusalem,  to  be 
won  by  disliking  and  rejecting  hap- 
piness here  on  earth.  And  so  long  as 
this  ideal  stands  fast,  it  is  very  well. 
But  for  very  many  it  now  stands  fast 
no  longer ; for  Carlyle,  at  any  rate,  it 
had  failed  and  vanished.  Happiness 
in  labour,  righteousness,  and  veracity, 
— in  the  life  of  the  spirit, — here  was 
a gospel  still  for  Carlyle  to  preach, 
and  to  help  others  by  preaching. 
But  he  baffled  them  and  himself  by 
preferring  the  paradox  that  we  are  not 
born  for  happiness  at  all. 

Happiness  in  labour,  righteousness, 
and  veracity ; in  all  the  life  of  the 
spirit ; happiness  and  eternal  hope  ; — 
that  was  Emerson’s  gospel.  I hear  it 
said  that  Emerson  was  too  sanguine ; 


Ill 


EMERSON 


203 


that  the  actual  generation  in  America 
is  not  turning  out  so  well  as  he 
expected.  Very  likely  he  was  too 
sanguine  as  to  the  near  future ; in 
this  country  it  is  difficult  not  to  be 
too  sanguine.  Very  possibly  the  pre- 
sent generation  may  prove  unworthy 
of  his  high  hopes  ; even  several  gene- 
rations succeeding  this  may  prove 
unworthy  of  them.  But  by  his  con- 
viction that  in  the  life  of  the  spirit  is 
happiness,  and  by  his  hope  that  this 
life  of  the  spirit  will  come  more  and 
more  to  be  sanely  understood,  and  to 
prevail,  and  to  work  for  happiness, — 
by  this  conviction  and  hope  Emerson 
was  great,  and  he  will  surely  prove  in 
the  end  to  have  been  right  in  them. 
In  this  country  it  is  difficult,  as  I 


204 


EMERSON 


in 


said,  not  to  be  sanguine.  Very  many 
of  your  writers  are  over-sanguine, 
and  on  the  wrong  grounds.  But  you 
have  two  men  who  in  what  they  have 
written  show  their  sanguineness  in  a 
line  where  courage  and  hope  are  just, 
where  they  are  also  infinitely  im- 
portant, but  where  they  are  not  easy. 
The  two  men  are  Franklin  and 
Emerson.1  These  two  are,  I think, 

1 I found  with  pleasure  that  this  conjunction 
of  Emerson’s  name  with  Franklin’s  had  already 
occurred  to  an  accomplished  writer  and  delightful 
man,  a friend  of  Emerson,  left  almost  the  sole 
survivor,  alas  ! of  the  famous  literary  generation 
of  Boston, — Dr.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes.  Dr. 
Holmes  has  kindly  allowed  me  to  print  here  the  in- 
genious and  interesting  lines,  hitherto  unpublished, 
in  which  he  speaks  of  Emerson  thus  : — 

4 Where  in  the  realm  of  thought,  whose  air  is  song, 
Does  he,  the  Buddha  of  the  West,  belong? 

He  seems  a winged  Franklin,  sweetly  wise, 

Born  to  unlock  the  secret  of  the  skies  ; 


Ill 


EMERSON 


205 


the  most  distinctively  and  honourably 
American  of  your  writers  ; they  are 
the  most  original  and  the  most  valu- 
able. Wise  men  everywhere  know 
that  we  must  keep  up  our  courage 
and  hope ; they  know  that  hope  is, 
as  Wordsworth  well  says;— 

‘ The  paramount  duty  which  Heaven  lays, 

For  its  own  honour,  on  man’s  suffering  heart.’ 

But  the  very  word  duty  points  to  an 
effort  and  a struggle  to  maintain  our 
hope  unbroken.  Franklin  and  Emer- 
son maintained  theirs  with  a convin- 
cing ease,  an  inspiring  joy.  Franklin’s 
confidence  in  the  happiness  with 

And  which  the  nobler  calling — if  ’tis  fair 
Terrestrial  with  celestial  to  compare — 

To  guide  the  storm-cloud’s  elemental  flame, 

Or  walk  the  chambers  whence  the  lightning  came 
Amidst  the  sources  of  its  subtile  fire, 

And  steal  their  effluence  for  his  lips  and  lyre? 


206 


EMERSON 


in 


which  industry,  honesty,  and  economy 
will  crown  the  life  of  this  work-day 
world,  is  such  that  he  runs  over  with 
felicity.  With  a like  felicity  does 
Emerson  run  over,  when  he  con- 
templates the  happiness  eternally  at- 
tached to  the  true  life  in  the  spirit. 
You  cannot  prize  him  too  much,  nor 
heed  him  too  diligently.  He  has 
lessons  for  both  the  branches  of  our 
race.  I figure  him  to  my  mind  as 
visible  upon  earth  still,  as  still  stand- 
ing here  by  Boston  Bay,  or  at  his 
own  Concord,  in  his  habit  as  he 
lived,  but  of  heightened  stature  and 
shining  feature,  with  one  hand 
stretched  out  towards  the  East,  to 
our  laden  and  labouring  England ; 
the  other  towards  the  ever-growing 


Ill 


EMERSON 


20  7 


West,  to  his  own  dearly  - loved 
America, — ‘great,  intelligent,  sensual, 
avaricious  America/  To  us  he  shows 
for  guidance  his  lucid  freedom,  his 
cheerfulness  and  hope ; to  you  his 
dignity,  delicacy,  serenity,  elevation. 


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